The Masthead

Masthead has been a leading journal of professional opinion journalism since 1948. Recent material appears by year in the menu at left. 

 

The rest of this page is a portal to historical information archived from the Association of Opinion Journalists (formerly National Conference of Editorial Writers, 1947-2011) which merged into ASNE in 2016-2017


About The Masthead

The Masthead has been published as a prime professional-educational journal for more than 50 years. 

It was a quarterly from soon after the start of the National Conference of Editorial Writers in 1947 until the slick black-and-white print product gave way to economics and digital conversion in 2009. 

For decades, it was available only by membership or by subscriptions (including those paid by several academic, research, and public libraries). It became free online in 2012 when NCEW became AOJ. A few of its additional resources have been limited to signed-in AOJ members.

During the 2014 transitions of management services and online presence, previous materials from 2009 to mid-2014 were archived onto this site. Some articles from pre-2009 paper issues are being sold by an Amazon affiliate, NOT by AOJ, online. The broker for this pre-2011 deal reports small royalties to AOJ.

Academic journal index services cited Masthead articles of the 1970s-1990s and some research libraries still have paper copies or microform. Masthead articles from October 2001 to October 2009, and references to Masthead, NCEW, or AOJ in books and other publications from 1948 to 2013 are available on EBSCO or other academic-library services via log-in from many public libraries or educational institutions.

Please note: During the 2016 merger of AOJ into ASNE, previous materials from 2009 to late 2016 were archived onto this site.

Some articles from pre-2009 paper issues are being sold by an Amazon affiliate, not by AOJ or ASNE, online. An academic journal service (Cengage Learning), available to patrons of participating libraries via links such as EBSCO, has searchable back issues from the 1990s to 2009. Those vendors reported very small royalties to AOJ and now will pay them to ASNE. An extensive collection of Masthead back issues and other NCEW-AOJ documents resides with the Wisconsin State Historical Society library in Madison.

Masthead was indexed in the Business Periodicals Index (BPI) for decades, and some libraries (in addition to the New York Public Library) may still have far-back issues on paper or microform. If you find other places that hold old Mastheads, please notify staff at ASNE@asne.org and mention this page. Furthermore, some if not many links in Masthead articles will be broken or inaccessible due to the historical nature of the archives. Such links should be reported to ASNE Staff (asne@asne.org) as soon as possible.