toe-touch

n. a trip taken by a reporter merely to acquire the proper dateline on a story, even though all reporting is done somewhere else or by someone else. Subjects: English, Media, Jargon

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Citations: 2003 Jack Shafer Slate (May 23) “Rick Bragg’s ‘Dateline Toe-Touch’”: Visiting a scene just long enough to claim a dateline for an article based on somebody else’s uncredited reporting—let’s call it a “dateline toe-touch”—may not be as egregious as writing stories datelined Palestine, W.Va., without leaving your Brooklyn apartment, as Jayson Blair did. 2003 N.Y. Times Co. Siegal Committee Report (July 30) p. 28: When a correspondent travels, it should be to report for the newspaper. If deadline constraints mean that the reporter will make no significant contribution to someone else;s work, we should skip the trip—the “toe touch” that serves only to justify a dateline artificially beneath the byline. 2004 Greg Mitchell, Joe Strupp @ New York City Editor & Publisher (Mar. 9) “‘E&P’ Puts Readers’ Questions to Jayson Blair”: You talk a lot about the practice back then of the ‘toe-touch’—someone reporting a story from their home desk and then traveling only briefly to the city where the story is set just to ‘get the dateline.’ You say editors ‘often’ ordered that to be done.

Posted 15 Sep 04 | Permalink | Tell a Friend