Remember how the Times Barry Bearak, reporting from Zimbabwe on the country’s ridiculously rigged Robert Mugabe election, feared retribution from the government, so he kept his name off his reports, but then agreed to be bylined when colleagues did? And then he was arrested, imprisoned for a few days, and released on $7 bail?

CNN’s Dan Rivers did not get the Don’t Identify Yourself in a Country That Hates Journalists memo.

Sneaking into Myanmar to report on the military junta’s keeping cyclone relief aid from civilians, Rivers spent his first day there filing reports without being named or showing his face on screen. Then, he and CNN decided to come out from the shadows: “We decided it would have much more impact if I could communicate more directly, if I could look down the barrel of a camera and tell people precisely how bad it was.”

And he’s probably right. But it didn’t help his situation any.

As soon as he identified himself, authorities began searching hotels for his whereabouts. They began circulating his picture, and he was repeatedly stopped, including once by an immigration official who compared his passport to his own “FIND THIS MAN!” photo, but somehow escaped detection. He hid under a blanket the next time the police came by. And when officials did ask to see his passport another time?

“[...] he casually covered up his first and last names with his thumbs. They radioed Rivers’ two middle names back to their bosses. They were passed on to another government official, who let them go after being convinced they were part of a relief group. Strategic offerings of cigarettes, water and a candy bar helped.”

And then:

While on a plane to get out of the country, Rivers was called back to the gate to be searched. He’d been found out. He was thoroughly searched, but fortunately had no pictures with him.

“I thought I was going to get hauled off to some fetid prison for a week,” he said.

Eventually, an impatient stewardess demanded authorities make a decision on what to do with Rivers and, thus challenged, put him back on the plane. [AP]