The morning after Barack Obama was elected US president, queues began to form at the offices of the Los Angeles Times.

With readers eager to get their hands on a piece of history, the newspaper’s print run was extended and an extra 300,000 copies of the November 5 edition were sold. Days later, entrepreneurial salesmen were seen hawking the election paper at city barber shops and on street corners. After a prolonged slump, the LA Times was suddenly very much in vogue.