Is there an official term in the newspaper business for the “header” of the front page of a newspaper that bears its name and usually some fancy graphic (or logo) like lady liberty, or a bunch of stars, or arrows, or such?
Masthead
Edit: Masthead is the term used in Britain and other Commonwealth countries. But in the US the term is apparently Nameplate:
Actually there is some confusion about this.
Masthead makes more sense intellectually, but is more often (I think) used at newspapers to refer to the list of Important People usually published on the editorial page. Here’s an online equivalent (note the URL and page title): The Masthead of The New York Times. - The New York Times
The newspaper’s name in customary font + graphics, is more often (in my experience) called the nameplate or flag. See: http://www.historybuff.com/newspapers/nameplates.html
Nameplate is the thing that says The New York Times at the top of the page. This is often erroneously referred to as the “masthead.”
The masthead is the block that lists the publisher, editor, address, etc.
According to the OED, the older journalistic sense of “masthead” was thte title, motto, logo, etc, printed at the top of the front page. This sense of the term originated in the US, and there are citations going back to the 1830s. This sense crossed to the UK, where it remains the dominant (journalistic) sense of “masthead”.
The sense of “masthead” which refers to the block on the editorial page identifying the owner, publisher, etc, is later; it dates from the 1930s. As far as I know it’s exclusive to the US, not least because British daily papers typically do not have such a block.
Thanks, all. My apologies…I would not have thought wiki would cover such a trivial thing.
:dubious:
Trivial things are what Wikipedia is MADE to cover. If you need an intensive explanation of the cosmological constant, Wikipedia’s probably a bad idea. If you need to know the name of the 3rd cousin of Captain Picard, Wikipedia is your go-to.
Yes, “flag” is the term I’m most familiar with for this.
Auguste. Famous for what he did once, for 20 minutes, in 1960. (And Mariana really enjoyed it, too.) 
It is called the flag or masthead. The box with important peoples’ names is called the"box with important peoples’ names." And other things.
Actually, if I remember correctly, the front page logo at the top is the flag and the inside page box with important people is the masthead. It’s been a while, though.