By-line

The byline on a newspaper or magazine article gives the date, as well as the name of the writer of the article. Bylines are commonly placed between the headline and the text of the article, although some magazines (notably Reader's Digest) place bylines at the bottom of the page to leave more room for graphical elements around the headline.

The dictionary defines a byline as "a printed line of text accompanying a news story, article, or the like, giving the author's name."

A typical newspaper byline might read:

Tom Joyce
Enterprise Correspondent

A byline can also include a brief article summary that introduces the author by name:

Penning a concise description of a long piece has never been as easy as often appears, as Staff Writer John Smith now explains:

Magazine bylines and bylines on opinion pieces often include biographical information on their subjects. A typical biographical byline on a piece of creative nonfiction might read:

John Smith is working on a book, My Time in Ibiza, based on this article. He is returning to the region this summer to gather material for a follow-up essay.

Bylines were rare before the late 19th century. Before then, the most similar practice was the occasional "signed" or "signature" article. The word byline itself first appeared in print in 1926, in a scene set in a newspaper office in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

One of the earliest consistent uses of the idea was for battlefield reporting during the American Civil War. In 1863, Union General Joseph Hooker required battlefield reporters to sign their articles so that he would know which journalist to blame for any errors or security violations.

The practice became more popular at the end of the 19th century, as journalists became more powerful and popular figures. Bylines were used to promote or create celebrities among some yellow journalists during this time. Proponents of signed articles believed that the signature made the journalist more careful and more honest; publishers thought it made papers sell better.

However, the increasing use of bylines was resisted by others, including the publisher–owner of The New York Times, Adolph Ochs, who believed that bylines interfered with the impersonal nature of news and decreased the sense of institutional responsibility for an article's content. Bylines remained rare in that newspaper for several more decades.

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Wikipedia