The day after Barack Obama was elected President, the purveyors of print media discovered a small glimmer of fiscal hope amid the continuing, escalating doom that grips the entire industry. People wanted to buy copies of the Morning After edition of the newspaper, again and again, forever. This led Ana Marie Cox to tweet: "Don't see how it's a GOOD thing that the future of print journalism means adopting the business model of the Franklin Mint." But no one listened! Least of all her former employer, Time magazine, who got artist Shepard Fairey to ink a revised version of his famous Obama poster as the exclusive cover of their Person of the Year issue. Was the issue intended to be a fairminded editorial attempt to assess Obama's impact or a maxed-out effort to stack some mad green? Maybe Fairey can use his illustrative skills to capture all that blurring!
Anyway, now the Washington Post has dreamed up a means of cashing in on Obamaphilia that comes dressed up as an exciting opportunity for their readers. As FishbowlDC reports, the paper's classified ads department, in partnership with Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, has launched "Welcome To The White House." For the low, introductory price of $10, you can send President-Elect Obama a special classified ad that he will almost certainly never see, but will almost certainly drive up sales of what the paper's editors are already calling "the keepsake Inauguration Day issue of The Washington Post."
Of course, there's a catch: if you send Obama a message, you'd better keep it positive! The fine print reads:
All ads must be congratulatory in nature. The Washington Post reserves the right to reject any notice.
I'm sure that Howard Kurtz would add this stunt to his "Obama Adulation Watch" if he didn't himself work for the Washington Post. Rather, I'm sure he's hard at work, polishing his "keepsake" writing for this "keepsake" issue. Keepsake, keepsake, keepsake...say the word enough and it loses all meaning!