If you’re reading this, you’ve seen a few datelines in your time. That city name at the beginning of a news article. Do you know what it means and why it’s put there, though?  

The dateline indicates a few things and is intended to help readers select which news stories they prioritize reading, but also helps a reader know where the story is based out of, either where the journalist was working from or where the actual event being covered occurred.  

Most of the time, a reporter selects a dateline that indicates where the event took place. For example, coverage of Farmer Consumer Awareness Day will use QUINCY as the dateline. A story about a bill going through the Washington State Legislature will use OLYMPIA and a story about Adams County Commissioners deciding on a contract award would say RITZVILLE.  

When a story is regional, covering an issue that affects Quincy, Ephrata and Soap Lake, rather than deciding on which city we’ll use as the dateline or using all three cities, we default to the city where the reporter is based out of. In the case of the Columbia Basin Herald, we would use MOSES LAKE as the dateline in that instance. For our fellow journalists at the “Wenatchee World,” that would be WENATCHEE, or for the “Seattle Times,” the default dateline would be SEATTLE for a regional story.  

The Columbia Basin Herald does have two datelines that vary from the norm a bit.  

When a statewide issue comes up, we may use the dateline WASHINGTON. That’s a departure from typical Associated Press style. Ordinarily, that would mean the news took place in our nation’s capital. However, for clarity, when we run a story from there, we use WASHINGTON, D.C. as the dateline so that it’s clear which Washington we’re talking about. Generally, we don’t cover national news, but there are exceptions when something is very important, and we need to make sure our readers are aware of the event. However, as a rule, we do our best to keep our stories to Grant County, Adams County and state-level news that impacts readers in their daily lives. 

The other unique dateline we use is COLUMBIA BASIN. Stories with that dateline are things we think will have an appeal to folks throughout our coverage area. Things like our events calendar we print each Friday and at the start of each month.  

One thing to remember as you’re looking at datelines is that county seats will get more datelines than other places in our coverage area. So, you may see EPHRATA  or RITZVILLE for stories that are associated with Grant and Adams counties, respectively. Those stories will be relevant to all readers. This includes coverage of court cases, county boards, utility districts and other organizations that have a countywide authority. 

In Grant County, for example, all residents from Grand Coulee down to Mattawa and Desert Aire pay rates set by the Grant County Public Utility District — which is based in Ephrata.  

In Adams County, coverage of the Adams County Sheriffs Office’s efforts to reopen the jail would have a RITZVILLE dateline. If someone is arrested in Adams County or is the victim of a crime in Adams County, that’s the facility that is involved.  

The idea is to help readers know which stories are most relevant to them. All of the content is informative, after all, the Columbia Basin is a community of several towns that have a lot in common, but knowing which is most relevant is useful and respectful of your time. 

What questions do you have about how the media works? Shoot me an email at editor@columbiabasinherald.com, and I’ll be happy to answer. 

Thank you for your readership. 

R. Hans “Rob” Miller
Managing Editor