- Home
- About
- Membership
- News and Events
- ASME NEXT
- ASME Awards
- Job Board
ASME CELEBRATES 60TH ANNIVERSARYAnnouncing the formation of ASME to the Magazine Publishers Association at its annual fall conference on September 17, 1963, Ted Patrick, the editor of Holiday and the first president of ASME, said: “In our estimation, the editorial freedom of magazines should be protected more vigorously than ever before, and perhaps this new society can be a genuine factor in such protection. At least we hope to give it a try.” Patrick also noted that ASME would, at its first meeting later that day, “discuss again the much-discussed business of magazine awards.” The National Magazine Awards were established soon after by ASME working with the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. Though Ted Patrick would not live to see it—he died in March 1964 at the age of 62—the first National Magazine Award was presented to Look in 1966, “for its skillful editing, imagination and editorial integrity, all of which were reflected particularly in its treatment of the racial issue during 1965.” Honorees in 1966 also included Ebony, which received a Certificate of Special Recognition for “imaginative and forceful treatment of social questions as reflected particularly in its issue on ‘The White Problem in America,’” and The New Yorker, which received a Commendation for “its skillful editing and for its flair for dramatic innovation as demonstrated by its publication of Truman Capote’s ‘In Cold Blood.’” Sixty years on, ASME continues to pursue “the purposes of the Society” as set forth at its first meeting in September 1963. Those goals included, and still include (albeit not in these words), “to define the responsibility of magazine editors’ exercise of discretion and taste in the discharge of their duties” and “to identify magazine editors as a force that naturally leads and molds, sometimes prods and challenges, occasionally angers and hurts, often salutes and cheers, frequently entertains and amuses, the human society which magazines serve as a truly national force in communications.” Elected to lead ASME that day as members of the Executive Committee—the motion was moved by Edward A. Weeks, editor of The Atlantic—were Betsy Talbot Blackwell, editor in chief of Mademoiselle; Mary E. Buchanan, editor of Parents; Ralph Daigh, editorial director of Fawcett Publications; John H. Johnson, president of Johnson Publishing Company; Robert M. Jones, editor of Family Circle; Daniel D. Mich, editorial director of Look; W.H. “Wade” Nichols, editor of Good Housekeeping; Philip Salisbury, chairman of Bill Brothers; and Robert Stein, editor of Redbook. Those in attendance at the meeting also included John Mack Carter, editor of McCall’s and later Ladies’ Home Journal and Good Housekeeping; Norman Cousins, editor of Saturday Review; and Arnold Gingrich, publisher of Esquire. Alongside them were the editors of magazine with now unfamiliar titles—U.S. Lady, Popular Electronics, Hairdo, The Episcopalian, Silver Screen, Ingenue—as well as editorial leaders at Cosmopolitan, Golf Digest, Reader’s Digest, Business Week, Gentlemen’s Quarterly, Sunset, Highlights for Children and Popular Science. In the same way that the charter members of ASME were then looking forward to honoring the achievements of their colleagues at the first National Magazine Awards, the members of the current ASME Board of Directors look forward to celebrating with you the lasting power of magazine and now digital journalism—and the next generation of magazine makers—at the 59th annual presentation of the National Magazine Awards on Tuesday, April 2, 2024, at Terminal 5 in New York. The National Magazine Awards 2024 call for entries will be published Thursday, September 21.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS AMANDA KLUDT | Vox Media | PRESIDENT RICHARD DORMENT | Men’s Health CLARA JEFFERY | Mother Jones | EX OFFICIO SIDNEY HOLT | Executive Director |
