by John Wordock | Mar 30, 2026
Blizzard? What blizzard? I journeyed to Atlantic City in New Jersey at the end of February to judge the National Headliner Awards. The contest, around more than 90 years now, has honored many of my heroes over the decades, including Edward R. Murrow, Ernie Pyle...
by Mark Washburn | Aug 8, 2025
The National Headliner Awards have been identifying clever commentary at the point of a brush since our early days. Among the up-and-coming editorial cartoonists we’ve discovered was one Herbert L. Block of the Newspaper Enterprise Association in 1940. He would go on...
by Neill Borowski | Jul 10, 2025
Community digital-only news sites have shown growing vitality in National Headliner Awards entries as local print newspapers vanish. We put particular emphasis on attracting entries for the 2025 awards from the smallest to the largest digital-only sites. Judges were...
by Mark Washburn | Oct 17, 2024
Jim Haught of The Charleston Gazette in West Virginia was honored in 1971 for investigative reporting. “I only wish there was a cash prize attached to this because this week I inherited the major pitfall of investigative reporting,” he said in accepting his prize. “I...
by Mark Washburn | Oct 16, 2024
The 90th National Headliner Award winners honoring the best journalism in the United States in 2023 were announced today. The awards were founded in 1934 by the Press Club of Atlantic City. The annual contest is one of the oldest and largest in the country that...
by Mark Washburn | Oct 15, 2024
At the first Headliners award dinner in 1935, New Jersey Gov. Harold Hoffman explained he was once a cub reporter, making $8 a week. And, he said, judging by editorials in New Jersey papers, some editors still felt “I was worth about $8 a week.” National Headliners...
