Rarity in competing front-page headlines: same words

Election Day readers in the New York area saw double on Tuesday with matching front-page headlines on competing newspapers.

Bold, capital white letters on a dark background reading, IT’S UP TO YOU, took up a chunk of the front page of both the Daily News and am New York, notes Grumpy Editor.

Such exact duplication of front-page headlines of newspapers in the same major city is a rarity.

Meanwhile, the New York Post figured Barack Obama was in the bag with a large line reading, Brink of History.  Above that was a full front-page photo of Obama, with a U.S. flag as a backdrop.  It carried the caption, “Barack Obama, poised for a landmark victory in today’s presidential election, salutes supporters in Jacksonville, Fla. yesterday.”

As for the New York Times, under its main front-page line, The ’08 Campaign: A Sea Change for Politics as we Know It, it ran four photos of both McCain and Obama that recapped their busy activities in far-flung cities on Monday.

Metro, another New York newspaper, ran two dominant words on its front page:  AMERICA SPEAKS.  At the bottom of the page it reminded, Voters to Decide:  Obama or McCain?

Newsday, Long Island, had McCain and Obama photos splitting the front page with the headline, Today it’s up to you.