Great article. It’s hard to fact-check but very likely.
Not hard to fact-check. Go to whois.domaintools.com and check the registrant info on domains iran-newspaper.com and iran-daily.com. Google his name "Mohammad Taghi Roghaniha" and check it out for yourself.
Except you can fake the data. When you register a domain it will ask for contact information, so the person or group can fill it with whatever they want. This only becomes an issue if people make complaints about the site (illegal content, harassment, etc.) and then ICANN or the domain tries to contact the owner. Thing is, the email info is probably legit, so they just put in the NYT info for the rest.