A Time Traveler may not want to confuse random passers-by by asking them What Year Is This?. So they'll find a newspaper or other conveniently dated artifact instead. A standard joke has one character using the architecture, the fashions, the technology and the incidents on TV to come up with a guess at the year, only for someone else to correct them after reading the paper. Not to be confused with personal ads, or with Authentication by Newspaper. Examples of Newspaper Dating include: