Nameless in Tehran – Empty Bylines in Sunday’s New York Times Articles

As NPR’s David Folkenflik first noted on his twitter feed, yesterday’s Sunday Times featured two stories without bylines. One piece recounted Times reporter David Rohde’s Saturday escape from Taliban captors following a seven month ordeal (and accompanying news blackout). The other piece was datelined Tehran.

The Rohde piece is less of a mystery. Considering multiple news organizations knew of Rohde’s situation over the last seven months one imagines the story of his capture has been written, and re-written in anticipation of his release (or other endings we’d rather not dwell on). The Tehran, however dateline bears some examining.

As has been noted in numerable news outlets the number of journalists in Iran is quickly dwindling. For the few who do remain the conditions are increasingly perilous. Times managing editor Bill Keller himself noted last week that Roger Cohen (whose excellent column this past weekend is an absolute must-read) would shortly be the last English language speaking writer in the country…and that was last week (Cohen is still there as of this writing). Making the question of who penned Sunday’s news item even more curious.

Those who have been following the Times coverage of Iran these last weeks can’t have helped but have noticed Nazila Fathi’s (often shared) byline on most of the reported pieces, accompanied by footnotes at the end of the articles affirming she is the one reporting from Iran so the disappearance of her name from yesterday’s piece was arguably cause for concern. Had her byline been removed as a precautionary measure for her own protection? Had she left Iran? Was the Times depending on stringers? (It’s worth noting the majority of the reported pieces bearing the byline filed in the last year have come from dangerous locales such as Myanmar and Iraq.)

What confused matters more was the reappearance of Fathi’s byline this morning alongside Alan Cowell (who has been contributing from London and Paris all week). A person with knowledge of how these things work suggested to us that Fathi may have been detained for the day, or perhaps was out the city altogether. But that’s just speculation. What is clear is that reporter’s lives are increasing in jeopardy as the regime cracks down — by some estimates only the BBC and AP have people left in the country — and particularly in light of Rohde’s captivity, not to mention CurrentTV reporters Laura Ling and Euna Lee who are still imprisoned in North Korea, news organizations are taking any and all possible precautions to keep their people as safe, and under the radar, as possible.

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