What does dateline mean?
A dateline is the brief line of text placed at the beginning of a newspaper article, magazine feature, or news dispatch that tells readers where and when the story was written — typically rendered as a place name followed by a date, as in "LONDON, May 9." It is a staple convention of journalism, giving reports a concrete anchor in geography and time and helping readers judge the freshness and origin of the news. Journalists speak of filing copy under a foreign dateline, and editors may dateline a story to reflect where the reporting was actually done rather than where it was edited. The word also functions as a verb meaning to add such a line to an article. Beyond the newsroom, "dateline" can occasionally refer to a line marking dates on a timeline or chart, though this sense is far less common. Familiar to any regular newspaper reader, it remains a precise term of the trade.
In journalism, a line at the head of a news article or dispatch stating the place and date on which it was written or filed.
"The dateline read 'BERLIN, October 2,' confirming the correspondent was reporting from the capital."
Conventionally set in capital letters for the place name followed by the full or abbreviated date.
To supply a news story with a dateline indicating where and when it was written.
"She datelined the feature from Nairobi, where she had spent two weeks reporting."
Regular plural, used when referring to the datelines of multiple articles or dispatches.
"The scrapbook preserved decades of foreign datelines from his career as a war correspondent."
That little line reading 'PARIS, June 12' atop a news story has its own name — and it's older than most of the newspapers that print it.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of dateline
Dateline is a transparent English compound of "date" and "line," formed within the newspaper trade to name the conventional place-and-date heading of a dispatch. Its ancestor "date" ultimately derives from Latin "datum" ("given"), used in medieval Latin phrases such as "datum Romae" — "given at Rome" — which introduced dated documents. The compound arose in the era of modern mass-circulation journalism, when telegraphed correspondence made the origin and timing of each report newly important.
Related word forms
How dateline is actually used
"Dateline" belongs chiefly to journalism and publishing registers. In American usage it is strongly associated with wire-service conventions; note also that NBC's long-running newsmagazine "Dateline" has given the word broad popular familiarity beyond the newsroom.
Easily confused with dateline
A deadline is a final time limit for completing something, while a dateline is the place-and-date line at the start of a news story.