From WNYC in New York, this is NPR's On the Media.

I'm Bob Garfield.

And I'm Brooke Gladstone.

Barack Obama, the senator from Illinois, has won the Democratic caucuses in Iowa.

I'm telling you, Keith, history.

This is Lexington and Concord.

This is going around the world right now.

In Rangoon, they're putting their front page together.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews on Thursday night, arguably the opening night, not counting months of previews, of the 2008 presidential race. Expect that show to run for about a year.

A guy named Barack Hussein Obama, whose father's from Kenya, and here he is on a victory

projectile to win the Democratic nomination, defeating the president's wife.

That's the big story as well.

I think the lead here is Barack Obama, and the second lead is Hillary loses.

Mark Jerkowitz is the associate director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

Mark, what do you make of the

enthusiasm of MSNBC's Chris Matthews? I was, you know, you took the words right out of my mouth,

but I was to say, no one has ever accused Chris Matthews of a lack of enthusiasm. But he reflects, I think,

the level of sort of surprisingly decisive commentary that came out of Thursday nights Iowa caucuses.

This didn't feel like the first inning of a game. This felt like the ninth inning of a game,

the way the media were covering it. And do you think that was appropriate? Do you think that the media

pump up the importance of the Iowa caucus merely because they spend so much time there?

Well, there's a real psychology to this and

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