Dateline or no dateline

That quote is just weird. Two martinis at lunch actually sounds like a really bad decision.

 

He said it at a time when five martinis at lunch were the norm.

 

Oh for a simpler time with much shorter life expectancies.

 

I actually thought that made a little bit of sense because Danville is right on the state line. If you are reading a story and not all that familiar with the Danville area it tells which side of the state line the story is coming from, and I don't think we put datelines for stories within the D-Ville city limits when I was there.

 

Any place you actually set foot:

Byline and dateline.

By I.M. STARMAN
Gruntville Daily Grunt

GRUNTVILLE -- It was a dark and stormy night.

Phone gamers:

Staff report byline and dateline

From Daily Grunt staff reports

GRUNTVILLE -- On a dark and stormy night, the Four Gruntmen rode again.


Phone features with extensive quotes and developed information:

Byline, no dateline. Indicate locale in the lede or first couple of grafs


By I.M. STARMAN
Gruntville Daily Grunt

On a dark and stormy night, Gruntville High coach Greg Oldgrunt prepared for the final home game of his 30-year career. "Yadda yadda yadda," he said.

 

Having to be there to use a dateline is a concept that eludes me completely. The dateline tells where the story takes place (and originally, when it took place). I was never taught that it matters where I am when that story takes place. If I was there, I use a byline. If I wasn't, it's a staff report.

But either way, I'll have people asking me if I was there. Datelines may have outlived their usefulness.

 

as the cavalry, led by 21, have strenuously noted, you've been taught 1,000 percent WRONG. it's not even debateable. 'dateline' is to be used ONLY when the person i.d.'d in the 'byline' was actually AT the 'dateline' for the live event being covered to let readers know you were an eyewitness to the event and that those quoted in the story were interviewed on-sight, too, unless otherwise indicated.

in the case of features/takeouts, if all those quoted in the story were interviewed over the phone, no dateline. however, if your deadline for said piece is not pressing and allows you to return home before writing/filing the piece, you also ABSOLUTELY use the dateline; the dateline tells the reader the author WAS at the event and/or spoke to the voices in the piece at the dateline's sight.

for example, back in the day when fiiling our 'nfl special section' to kick off the season, i'd often have pieces with as many as six different datelines. i'd spend three weeks on the road during training camps, sometimes writing 'live' but also often 'holding' a bigger feature on the team for the 'section.' again, letting everyone know that their intrepid reporter had indeed spent the summer boucing around various camps to bring them first-hand, on-site accounts filled with the on-site insights from the subjects.

it's really not nearly as complicated as some here make it out to be. putting a dateline on a story with your byline when you've never left your office or home is just plain wrong and knowingly misleading. shame on anyone who's done it.

 

It's not complicated. And 21 is right. And mizzou is right. And you are right. And apeman33 may not be RIGHT by the letter of the law, but he's provided the most common-sense answer.

As much as any of you want to wrinkle your face at this incontrovertible fact, it's a rule created by journalists for journalists. The public really doesn't care.

If you want to follow the rule, god bless ya.

 

Maybe it has outlived its usefulness in many cases. Maybe 80 percent of our readers don't know what a dateline means. Maybe 40 percent think we cover the games by watching them on TV. Maybe 35 percent don't know what the hell AP is and think we send staff writers across the country to cover the NBA playoffs when there's no local connection.

Even if that's true, there's still some knowledgeable people reading and we should write for them as much, if not more, than the idiots. Putting a dateline on (or leaving it off) is such a simple thing, why not do it for the people who know what it means?

 

You're right, Jake. That part I get.

My problems lie in the common sense of the rule itself, and public expectations.

If you're doing rewrite about a high school football game in Enid, Okla., and you're working for a newspaper in Norman, you use no deadline. And then people look at the rewrite with no dateline, then look at the story next to it on a football game in Stillwater, and it DOES have a dateline. You're expecting the reader to take this from that:

a) No writer was at the game in Enid;
b) A writer was at the game in Stillwater;
c) THAT is the reason the dateline's on one and not the other.

This isn't a matter of facilitating things for the idiots. It's a matter of us having these rules and the average reader doesn't really understand them. I can tell you that the average reader believes the games in Enid AND Stillwater should have datelines on them. And if they don't make sense to the reader, maybe datelines HAVE outlived their usefulness.

One thing about this, too. The reasoning's faulty, as I see it. If you're writing up for the knowledgeable reader, then anyone who isn't knowledgeable won't get it at all. If you're writing so the "idiots" can understand it ... well, then at least EVERYONE can understand it.

 

thank you for offering god's blessing.


and who else is going to make the 'rules' for journalism other than journalists? you can argue, 'who gives a crap?' all you want but our standards are already going into the crapper; let us cling to the few that still remain. in this day of our dying biz, it's more important than ever to differentiate between the places still trying to get it done the 'old-fashioned way,' by spending the money it takes to put your own reporters on site for as many events as possible. even if it's 'only those in the biz' who take notice or care, i expect honesty from the places i turn to for 'journalism.' we all know the ways the cut corners and bring out the smoke and mirrors to make it seem as though we're making chicken salad out of chicken spit. putting on a bylined story when the reporter was never in spitting distance of the action is simply indefensible. rationalize it all you want. it's simply wrong. BAD wrong.

 

No, shock. If it's "only those in the biz" who take notice or care, then it's pretty much meaningless.

And it's not rationalization if I present arguments against it, whether you agree with them or not, god bless ya.