Anat Kamm: Grey Lady Awakens from Her Slumbers…Finally

The N.Y. Times has finally awakened from its deep slumber on the Anat Kam story.  It only took them 22 days from when I published my first post! What’s most strange about this article is that it has no byline.  Through this case, and similar behavior from other media outlets, I’ve learned that a newspaper omits a byline when identifying a reporter would endanger or seriously complicate his professional life.  The Guardian’s Israeli correpondent Rory McCarthy wrote the Guaridan story on Anat Kam but there was no byline.  All of which means that either Ethan Bronner or Isabel Kershner wrote this byline-less story.

Frankly, I think this late in the game to omit a byline is chicken-shit.  Donald McIntyre of The Independent published a story using his byline.  Mya Guarnieri published in The National using her byline (she by the way is an Israeli citizen and even more endangered than the NY Times’ Israel-based reporters).

With this article, I’m happy to report I’ve hit the blogger equivalent of Nirvana: a link in the Times along with my blog’s name and my own name.  For this, ironically, I have Judy Miller to thank since this information in the Times report was copied from Judy Miller’s Daily Beast story.  Today, was the biggest day of traffic for my blog in its history, over 6,000 unique visitors, over three times normal.