SOMEWHERE—

NEW YORK—You probably didn’t pay any attention to this dateline.

After all, why should you take much note of it? The dateline doesn’t even contain a date anymore. Datelines have tended to be mere placelines, now that most reporters use telephones or computers to file articles instantly from almost anywhere. For most readers, the dateline is either unnecessary or unnoticed. They treat it as nothing more than a handful of capital letters and a long dash. Datelines may have been helpful during the archaic age of telegraphs, the thinking probably goes, but they have long since outlived their usefulness.

I have a different perspective. I really enjoy using datelines, and I always carefully consider any I come across while reading newspapers.

Datelines are a longstanding symbol of journalism, on par with headlines and bylines. Former New York Times correspondent Rick Bragg said in an interview that his job as a reporter was to “go get the dateline.” The New York Times’ higher-ups did not agree entirely with Bragg, but the reporter’s comment nonetheless underscores the important position that the dateline holds in many journalists’ lives.

By leading off an article with “NEW YORK—” or “BOSTON—” or “TIKRIT, Iraq—,” the author is attaching a seal of reliability to the story. It lends authority to the report, as if the writer gains more credibility for having seen the place with his or her own two eyes. It affords significance to the location from which someone is reporting. (Ironically, the datelined piece you are reading right now has almost nothing to do with the fact that I’m writing from New York.) It also indicates that the reporter is willing to go to great efforts and travel great distances to create the most credible article possible. Even though most people probably don’t notice the dateline, it is like the little note at the bottom of a cereal box stating that the box is made with recycled paper. It’s a good, responsible, worthwhile thing to do and it deserves mention, even if few notice.

I get to use datelines infrequently, which is part of the reason why I enjoy it. I have written a fair number of stories, but before this summer, only three articles began with a city name all in capital letters. It is common practice at newspapers not to affix a dateline to articles reported locally. And a Crimson staffer covering the College administration or the Undergraduate Council reports very locally indeed.

So when the opportunity arises for me to “go get the dateline,” I get a little excited. I am getting the chance to go an extra mile (or, in the case of traveling to New York, an extra 275 miles) to produce a quality article. It makes me feel as if I’m getting out and doing something novel during my reporting process, and it serves as a seal guaranteeing the journalistic quality of the product.  A dateline yells out, “I’m not your run-of-the-mill newsroom-reported story!” Or at least it yells that out to me.

Maybe not everyone who writes news stories shares the same exact excitement, but it still seems that I’m not the only one who likes datelines. Former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair liked datelines so much that he’d put them in his articles even if he hadn’t visited those cities. My colleagues at The Crimson have managed to turn this little scrap of journalism into an art form. Among the unorthodox datelines I’ve seen on this page this summer are the abstract “THE INTERNSHIP LINE—,” the cryptic “THE MEZZANINE—,” the precise “SOMEWHERE ALONG I-95—” and “EUROPE—,” and the schizophrenic “NEW JERSEY/NEW YORK CITY—.” I’m glad to see others putting effort of any sort into datelines.

When someone mentions a “dateline,” don’t think solely of the NBC news magazine show or the website that tries to match up couples. Don’t dismiss it as an archaic vestige of journalism from many decades ago. When you pick up a newspaper and begin to read a story with a dateline, think for a couple of seconds about the people like me who get excited by having earned a dateline. Consider what efforts went into getting the dateline. Don’t overlook this journalistic symbol entirely.

Or, if all of that is too dramatic for your taste, simply know where your paper is coming from.

Alexander J. Blenkinsopp ’05, a Crimson editor, is a social studies concentrator in Eliot House. He spends his long hours on the subway getting excited about the new datelines coming up every few minutes.