The controversy over Maureen Dowd’s column that had a Derry, N.H., dateline that appeared in print while she was in Jerusalem, is much ado about nothing. She did the reporting for her story in New Hampshire and then had to rush off to Jerusalem to cover President Bush. A lefty blog, called her on it. Here’s what NYT editorial page editor Andy Rosenthal (wonder how he got his job) said about it:
“[Dowd] reported the column in New Hamsphire. The fact of the matter is, particularly when covering a campaign which is a very high-speed story, it’s incredibly unusual for the reporter to be in the same place as the dateline when the story is filed. What do you do, stay in Des Moines while a candidate travels to New Hampshire? Oh, don’t go to Ramallah with the President because you have a Jerusalem dateline on your story! I mean this is just ridiculous! This is a complete invention, this controversy.”
“Datelines are kind of an anachronism,” he said. “It’s a little bit of an affectation.”
I have to disagree about datelines. As a reader, I find them very useful, but I don’t need to know that the reporter is in the physical place specified by the dateline as I read the dispatch over my morning coffee. That’s just ridiculous, as Rosenthal pointed out.
Dowd is also being criticized for using an assistant to get some quotes. This is a criticism that can only be levied by someone with no knowledge of how syndicated columnists, especially the big ones, work. Jack Anderson did it for Drew Pearson. Brit Hume later did it for Anderson. It’s not a big deal. As for not giving the assistant a byline credit, well, that comes once the assistant has earned it.
I have no love for the NYT or for Dowd, but this criticism is unwarranted.
