You won’t want to miss ‘From Hope to History’ in Wednesday’s paper.
Margaret Sullivan: News gearing up to cover Obama’s inauguration
Presidential inauguration days are sometimes uplifted by poetry, and sometimes marred by embarrassment. Abraham Lincoln gave us “mystic chords of memory” in 1861, and, 100 years later at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration, Robert Frost reminded us that “The land was ours before we were the land’s.”
Less loftily, a reporter’s one-letter spelling error had Theodore Roosevelt taking a “bath,” rather than an “oath,” at his 1901 inauguration.
But, no matter what the specifics, they are always historic occasions and often memorable ones.
Barack Obama has been acting like the president for weeks now, but in two days, it becomes official.
On Tuesday at noon, he will become the 44th president of the United States, and shortly thereafter will deliver his inaugural address, as millions attempt to look on in person and millions more keep watch around the world.
Seldom has more excitement surrounded an Inauguration Day. With that in mind, The News will produce a special commemorative section that will appear in Wednesday’s paper.
“From Hope to History” is the name of the eight-page section, which is being planned as a keepsake for our readers. It will include not only coverage of the previous day’s events, but also the full text of Obama’s inaugural address, photographs of everything from the oath itself to the celebrations that follow, as well as stories written by our staff. They will chronicle Buffalo-area residents’ reactions to the big day, interview local people who have bused down to Washington and check in with local political luminaries who are in attendance.
Our Washington reporter Douglas Turner will contribute a column, and Washington Bureau Chief Jerry Zremski, capping his tumultuous year covering the election itself, will be on the scene.
“This will be the largest public gathering in U. S. history, and it will be history in and of itself,” Zremski notes. “We’ll be doing what we always do, looking for the Buffalo people and the Buffalo stories — this time in a crowd of, oh, maybe 3 million.” (Zremski asks Buffalo people who are planning to attend to e-mail him with their cell phone numbers at jzremski@buffnews.com .) You won’t want to miss “From Hope to History” on Wednesday.
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Now that 2008 — a difficult year for many individuals and businesses, given the tanking economy — is over, we at The News are looking back on one of the bright spots: the progress made in multimedia efforts at our News Web site, buffalonews.com.
We put a great deal of effort into the Web site this past year. We redesigned its look, added a much more efficient search mechanism, debuted “live chats” by our staffers on subjects as varied as the Buffalo Bills and writing skills, and produced many more local videos.
Those efforts have been paying off in terms of the site’s viewership. Last year, the site had 36 million visits, up an impressive 50 percent from the previous year. That increased traffic solidified our position as the region’s No. 1 Web destination. (Meanwhile, happily, our print newspaper remains No. 1 in market penetration among large dailies throughout the United States.)
It’s also satisfying to report that, on the business side, our Web revenue doubled in 2008, and we’re hoping for another substantial increase this year.
As many of our print and Web readers are aware, newspaper economics are changing fast. Print advertising is declining and so is print circulation.
But our mission of delivering the news accurately, fairly and with a spirit of enterprise has not changed, nor will it.
It’s gratifying to know that, whether on paper or digitally, people are continuing to turn to The News for their information — and that is sure to include the historic Inauguration Day coming up this week.
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