You must have noticed that each newspaper report starts with the name of a city and date. This is called dateline, and is used to anchor a story.
The name of the city indicates the name of the place where the story originated while the date indicates the date on which the story was written.
For instance, a morning newspaper dated August 22 will carry stories written on October 21. The date used in the dateline will be of the day gone by – that is August 21.
Jaipur, Aug 21
Dateline for unknown places
Sometimes the place where a story originates is unknown. For instance, the place where a massacre happened may be a small village. In this case the dateline will mention the name of the village followed by the name of the district. Thus,
Ramauli (Sitapur), August 21
This helps the reader identify the location better.
Dateline for moving locations
Some reports are based on moving locations like a press conference addressed by Prime Minister aboard his aircraft or a re[port from a warship or cruise liner. There is no date in such datelines.
On Board the PM’s aircraft:
On Board INS Vikrant:
Dateline in afternoon or evening newspaper
In the case of an afternoon or evening newspaper, the newspaper date, and the date used in the dateline are the same. This is because the newspaper is released the same day as the story is written.
Unfortunately most of the news papers in India have stopped datelines couple of years ago with change in paper dimensions reportedly to International Standards, with foreign consultants. I feel date line is very important even to quote later if necessary. any a time I make cuttings from news papers (theses days!?) and write down the date lines and some times miss and find it very difficult to place it when needed !
I agree fully with you, Soma.