Històrico, historisk, historique… In the newspapers today, the word often crops up to describe ast night's American elections.


“New dawn”, “new era”, “Oh-Bama!” for the most creative titles… According to most of the newspapers, America is sure to change with Barack Obama being the first black man to become the president of the USA.

The Iran Daily hopes for “a less arrogant America”, as Haaretz, in Israel, worries about the effects of Obama's win on US relations with Iran.

Because of the time difference with the USA, most newspapers in Europe couldn’t have the results. So, there were a few options: either to “celebrate” George W. Bush’s record after eight years at the head of the State: this is the choice made by The Sun (UK), which pays tribute to the next ex-president of the USA with a cruel: “Bye George – you made us laugh”…

Another solution was to stress the “historically high” turnout at the polls, with more than 63% voters (“at least 130 million Americans”, according to The Australian), who sometimes waited  five hours in queues.

But the best solution is perhaps the one chosen by De Morgen, a Belgian daily: it divided its front page in two: one side for each candidate, with the mention “The next president of the United States” and an invitation to visit their website for the definitive results.

This shows that Internet is a much more reactive media than the traditional press, ideally suited to breaking news like major elections.