Writing for the ages.

Some years ago--I think it was just after I wrote an editorial regarding a bit of demonstration art that involved dripping a Manhattan hotel room with strands of cheese--I began wondering if popular culture was passing me by.

I mocked the display, of course. How could I do otherwise?

Heaven knows I try to stay current and keep an open mind about the evolving nature of modern art. I tried to envision the intent of the artist, the messages that bourgeois bumpkins like me are expected to miss. But try as I might, I succumbed to the role as cast. I couldn't get past the literal fact that what I was looking at was hundreds of pounds of melted string cheese and that some poor, underpaid hotel maid was going to have to clean it all away eventually.

The age continuum has raised issues for editorialists for a great while--since long before even I was of an age when I would sip my martini and exult at the sheer genius (Genius, I tell you!) of a cheese artist.

As an institution, are editorialists losing a vast swath of potential audience for lack of a voice they might find compelling? Virtually all editorial page audiences skew well north of forty, as our pollsters regularly inform us. There are substantial reasons why this is so, certainly. Complexity and political arcana are not the stuff of younger readers, as a rule.

In this issue, we have asked a number of members to consider the consequences of missed cultural mileposts. Is a reference to Johnny Carson lost on younger readers? Or are we giving them short shrift, assuming that just because they are young and wired to electronics, their reference points don't match those of their elders?

Considering such weighty, trans-generational issues are NCEW members Frank Partsch, Robin Washington, and Michael Landauer, as well as Arizona Republic editorial writer Joanna Hensley and Jen Haberkorn, editor-in-chief of the Tribune at Marquette University. Jen recently returned editorial pages to the university's newspaper after nearly a decade's absence. Not by coincidence, the majority of these writers are roughly south of thirty. Youth is intentionally served.

Among our other feature presentations is an analysis not of those (young) people who should be our readers, but of current editorial page readers. Ohio University journalism professor Bill Reader provides the hard evidence about the age, education level, and other interesting data about our audiences. A tip: By and large, fans of Sammy Hagar and 50 Cent will not be found poring over our pages.

I will acknowledge a personal favorite among the submissions to the Summer Masthead. Tom Barton's reporting of his "Covering Indian Country" fellowship, presented by the Western Knight Center for Specialized Journalism, escorts us through an amazing journey from Washington, D.C., to Window Rock, Arizona. As one who has been to both places, I can say that Tom does a great job of demonstrating what a culture-shocking experience his group's adventure was.

Last, Homer nods. I hope. In the Spring 2005 Masthead, we observed that contributor and NCEW member Austin Bay recently had written columns from Iraq. He did not. Austin resumed his writing upon completing his tour of duty there.