the.com/dateline
The line that tells you how far a journalist traveled to watch something happen.
means The short heading on a news story naming the place (and often date) it was reported from.
from Built plainly from 'date' plus 'line' — originally the line of type at the top of a news dispatch giving when and where it was filed. From there the word also stretched to name the imaginary line in the Pacific (the International Date Line) where the calendar flips by a day, a separate but related use of 'date' plus 'line.'
- origin
- Started as literal date plus place on telegraph dispatches
- credibility flex
- Signals the reporter was actually there, not guessing
- international version
- Flips at the antimeridian, not Greenwich
- fakeable
- Some outlets got caught datelining cities reporters never visited