The Daily Telegraph's War on America front page of 12 September,
2001, has been voted the best front page ever by Newsnight viewers.
It
was voted by the public as their favourite out of eleven selected by Newsnight editor
Peter Barron from an exhibition currently on show at the British
Library to celebrate 100 years of the Newspaper Publishers Association.
Then
editor of the Telegraph, Charles Moore, said in today's paper: "Since
it was such a huge event, and it was mostly known the previous day, you
have a headline that is not strictly informative.
"You needed one that summed up the event, that brought in everything and gave it context.
"I
think this does it extremely well because that's what the terrorists
intended – war on America. That's what they thought they were declaring.
"It's
very dramatic but it also speaks to the picture very well because the
picture symbolises America. It's postcard terrorism, like hitting Big
Ben, so everybody knew you were hitting something at the heart of a
nation.
"That made me worry because it's the headline the
terrorists wanted. But I think it's justifiable because that was what
had happened. It was war on America.
"The thing that struck
everybody about the event was it had a filmic quality as if it were a
feature film. The front page brought that out well. You could almost
imagine it being a film poster."
The full voting was as follows:
- War on America – The Daily Telegraph 22.9 per cent
- The First Footstep – Evening Standard 15.1 per cent
- Gotcha – The Sun 9.9 per cent
- Dunkirk Defence – Daily Sketch – 9.6 per cent
- Up Yours Delors – The Sun – 8.6 per cent
- He lied and lied and lied – The Guardian 8 per cent
- Freddie Starr ate my hamster – The Sun 7.6 per cent ·
- Mrs Pankhurst arrested- Daily Mirror 7.1 per cent
- Murderers – Daily Mail 6.2 per cent
- The War is Over, says IRA – Independent 2.6 per cent
- Games rocked by black power – Evening News 2.5 per cent
To view front pages click here.
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