You need no special skills to understand the importance of a time stamp. The time stamp is precise. It gives you the posting date and time to the last second.
The four key elements that make a time stamp are:
Month, date, year and time
Some newspapers also include the day in the time stamp.
The time stamp is placed beneath the headline so that the web users can notice the posting date and time, and learn how fresh or old is a news report.
The role of the year is especially important in the time stamp. It helps date a story retrieved from the archives.
Example of a single time stamp:
July 13, 2013 10:30:25 IST
Some newspapers publish two time stamps. The first time stamp establishes the date and the time when the story was first published.
The second time stamp indicates the time when the story was last updated. This tool is especially useful in establishing the freshness of a developing story.
Example of two time stamps used with news reports:
First Published: 16:34 IST(31/5/2013)
Last Updated: 02:05 IST(1/6/2013)
The time stamp is not manual. Instead, the programme fetches the time and date from the server where the news report is stored to ensure consistency.
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