Sick of Phelps’ face on A1?
Tired of Michael Phelps photos on Page One?
We’ve had coverage on A1 of the Summer Olympics every day since last Friday’s opening ceremonies. Only two stories have appeared on the front page (”U.S. man dies in knife attack” on Sunday and “‘It’s time to be the best ever’,” which attempted today to put Phelps’ medal successes into historical context.)
On each of the other five days, the Page One presence was a photo and Olympic highlights, sending readers to Sports for the stories.
Six of the seven days have featured a photo of Michael Phelps somewhere on the page. Three photos were of Phelps in the water, one was a photo of two women standing in front of a poster of Phelps in the water, one was Phelps on the medal stand, and one was Phelps and teammate Garrett Weber-Gale celebrating a victory.
The lone exception: Saturday’s tab cover had a photo of the opening parade of athletes.
Like Tiger Woods in a golf tournament, each day seems to bring more focus on Phelps. He races again tonight. The day is early, but our expectation now is that tomorrow morning’s paper won’t have a picture of Phelps on the front page.
Steve Parker is the deputy managing editor for news, and oversees the Post-Dispatch's front page. STLtoday's online news editors are on his newsroom team. Parker has been at the paper since September 1980. 
No way!!! He’s one of the biggest stories of the 2008 olympics. And he’s doing his country proud. It’s nice to have positive stories on the front pages of newspapers for once. GO PHELPS!!!!!
I love Phelps and this years olympics has been really exciting to watch. However, I don’t think that Phelps or any other olympic story should be getting more press than the Georgia crisis right now.
Keep Phelps on page 1. I don’t follow much when the Olympics roll around. I haven’t had a chance to se any of his races yet. But in todays world where we have a self-consciousness about our world image and patriotism, its nice to have one avenue we can all focus on and be proud of. What Phelps is doing should make conservative and liberal alike glow with pride in the USA, if at least for a couple of weeks.
I don’t think anyone has ever dominated his or her sport the way that Phelps has. Keep him up there.
Michael deserves the front page given his tremendous performances. On TV, I feel we could do with less of his mother Debby. That time could be better spent giving more coverage to the other American swimmers.
Yes, I’m sort of tired of Michael Phelps but I seem to be in the vast minority. LOL The summer Olympics is only a couple weeks long and the majority rules, so I bow to those who don’t mind seeing him day after day.
The Olympics are The Story right now (at least they ought to be), and Phelps is The Story of these Olympics. If something else huge happens, then by all means put it up there - Blake beating Federer was pretty big, IMO - but we’re watching history being made, night after night. Phelps is dominating his sport to a level that has never been seen before. We won’t fully appreciate the significance of this until we look back on it years from now - let’s not lose sight of how incredible this is, just because we /expect/ him to win.
Why shouldn’t we have a real American role model? One who works his tail off and earns it the hard way. Thank you, Mr. Phelps. In addition to his obvious achievements, he has been professional, courteous and a good sportsman and this country should be extremely proud of his representation. He excels in an attitude that is lacking in every level of our society and we should be paying attention. There is no reason he shouldn’t be a part of page 1. There is plenty of room.
Good for Michael Phelps, but geez! There are dozens of American athletes at the Olympics, many with compelling stories, I’m sure. It’s bad enough that NBC is running all Phelps, all the time. It would be nice if newspapers like the Post could exercise what’s supposed to be their strong point and actually do some well-rounded reporting.
I could stare at him all day long!