Reporters Get New Datelines So They Won’t Seem Out of Place

Apr 16, 2017 · 13 comments
Chris (Missouri)
How many of stories are filed by a reporter that never set foot at the "dateline" location? As this report goes on to explain, that could be many. There should be no artistic license in selection of these place names, yet it appears that is exactly what is going on.
Terry Miller (San Francisco)
That is hardly what the article goes on to explain. If you know of a case in which a major media outlet claims a dateline which is misleading in some fashion, you should raise it. Occasionally there are serious problems when a reporter is caught making things up, and it's a big >ding< on the reputation, and the outlet knows it. The only example in here that's remotely like what you say is the one about the test being at Jackass Flats and if you read more carefully it says the correspondent traveled to the spot, unnecessarily, because he wanted the dateline. This is a question for a managing editor, perhaps, depending on the spending habits of the correspondent, but I see no indication of misleading datelines: that's the point. Fox News mints money because for the most part they have pundits sitting in news anchor-like sets opining on the stories of the day rather than going there.
Matt (California)
Wow. A child should be able to understand a dateline as currently written, but people (who read NYT, no less) are mystified? How would reading an article on a tablet or phone make a difference? Have IQs just dropped that sharply lately?
Tim Torkildson (Provo, Utah)
I’ve done a lot of writing, and my byline never varies
As I travel round the world (via good libraries.)
My legs ain’t what they used to be, and I no long drive,
And so my journeys all take place inside my mental hive.
I buzz around the Bering Sea or tramp the Kalahari --
Writing bits and pieces without being very chary.
I haven’t any money for an airplane or a cruise,
And thus must stay at home and type according to my muse.
But that’s okay because I feel that I am a headliner --
Filing all my stories from my La-Z-Boy recliner . . .
Tim Robinson (Spokane, WA)
Well they sometimes say "LONDON, Jan. 24, 2004 -- "
Ellen Tolmie (Toronto, Canada)
I love the only previous comment. Please add it to your story, a sort of honorary mention!
Pester (NYC)
So if the NYT already posts the reporter's name, and then the all uppercase dateline, why go the next step of saying... (reporter name) in (location). Seems unnecessary to me. We've got the info already.
RML (New City)
Don't want to seem too picky [and, btw, I know what a dateline means but anyway....] but why does London not have an England after it but Beirut has a Lebanon?
And if I am correct, those writing in NYC, except for the UN reporter, get no dateline; will that change?
giniajim (VA)
KING GEORGE, VA - Striking a blow for clarity! Good going NYT!!!
Carl Johnson (Grand Rapids MI)
But, I still don't know why it's called a dateline; where's the date!?!?
David (Monroe, Georgia)
Up until a few years ago, they included the date.
Fred (Chapel Hill, NC)
In the placeline.
Viewer (Texas)
I recall that some newspapers' included the day of the week and its date in their datelines as late as the 1970s. So The Times ran this dateline and opening sentence in its moon-landing article:

"HOUSTON, Monday, July 21 -- Men have landed and walked on the moon."

Still poetry after all these years in my humble opinion.