New York Times Reporting Through a Front Page That Never Published and More

This story is part of a series marking 175 years of eyewitness journalism from The New York Times.Read more here.1.

The election headline that was never publishedBy Dean BaquetIt is widely accepted that the print front page does not have the power it once did — except for historic events like the election of a new president.It is a keepsake, a memento.

So there is enormous pressure to come up with the perfect headline, one that will stand up to time.“Madam President” was just that.It didn’t have the candidate’s name.

It did not have to.Those two words caught the fact that America had chosen its first female leader.

It was the formal title that would be used in official settings.And the accompanying stories were designed to dwell on the moment, on the changing role of women in society, politics and power.

There was even a full discussion over what to call her husband, a former president.Except none of it was ever published, because to the surprise of most of us in the newsroom, and even to the ultimate winner, Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to Donald J.Trump.That night in the newsroom — the tossing of stories and the frantic creation of new ones — was a first sign of the confusion and the chaos that would come to characterize American elections for the next decade.

Chaos is the right word.The place was filled with guests, friends and spouses who assumed they would witness the election of the first woman as president.I remember feeling conflicted, the editor’s curiosity mixed with the shock that newsrooms nationwide had missed something large.

But the overall impulse was to fix the thing, to tear up the paper and start all over again — which is what we set about doing.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank yo...