Byline strike

A byline strike is a type of labor strike in which news reporters, photographers or graphic artists refuse to allow their names to appear in bylines with their stories or other contributions.^[1] The purpose of removing the byline is to attract public and management attention. The effectiveness of such actions is debated, but a byline strike can provide a means of expressing dissatisfaction without incurring the greater risk of a full strike.^[2][3][4]

Analysis or opinion pieces may not run at all during byline strikes, because publishing such contributions without author attribution may not meet editorial standards.^[5]

The concept of a "byline strike" arises from the practice of allowing reporters to have a byline removed from a piece which they object to after it has been edited or otherwise altered. Bylines, though widely used today, only came into active use starting from the 1920s.^[6]

References

1. (12 February 1976). Reporters At Post Bar Use of Bylines, The New York Times (reporting on 1976 byline strike at the New York Post)
2. (17 June 2004). What's the Point of a Byline Strike?, Slate
3. Ritea, Steve (March 2003). The Protest That Knows No Name Archived 2013-06-12 at the Wayback Machine, American Journalism Review
4. (16 December 2008). AP reporters, photographers stage 'byline strike', Agence France-Presse
5. (10 July 1987). At Washington Post, Byline Strike Goes On, The New York Times (reporting that the Washington Post was not running opinion articles "because Post editors decided it was not possible to run analysis or opinion pieces without identifying the author")
6. Hamilton, John Maxwell. Journalism's Roving Eye: A History of American Foreign Reporting, p. 225-26 (2009)