 |
|
|
Issue BriefOctober 18, 2000 The New York Times Offers Mea Culpa for Coverage of Wen Ho Lee Case
The New York Times was among the most aggressive news organizations reporting on the case of Dr. Wen Ho Lee and the nuclear weapons information he allegedly gave to China. The Times' front page article on March 6, 1999, entitled "Breach at Los Alamos: A Special Report: China Stole Nuclear Secrets For Bombs, U.S. Aides Say," indicated that a "Chinese-American scientist inside Los Alamos" had given away nuclear secrets that significantly helped China improve its nuclear arsenal. Lee was fired two days later and an investigation ensued. The Times' early news reports were widely criticized for being biased and quick-to-judge. The articles pointed fingers not only at Dr. Lee but also at the Clinton Administration's slow and ineffective handling of the situation, and turned out to be largely inaccurate. Dr. Lee, a Taiwanese-American scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was charged in December 1999 with 59 counts of mishandling nuclear secrets. He was imprisoned for 278 days, from Decemaber 9, 1999 to September 13, 2000. He was held in solitary confinement because authorities considered him a "clear and present danger" to the national security of the United States. After a vigorous investigation, which produced no evidence of espionage, Lee pleaded guilty to one count of improperly downloading classified material to an unclassified computer and transferring the material to ten portable tapes. He was sentenced to time already served. The Times reported that China had advanced its nuclear technology using stolen secrets from a U.S. government lab and hinted that Dr. Lee was the main suspect in the case. In the nearly-19 months that have followed, the Times and its reporters have been heavily criticized for their summaries of the situation. The White House claimed the Times used "aggressive coverage [that] set off a media feeding frenzy" and journalists at other major media organizations said the Times staff conducted "utterly reckless" reporting. White House Administration Deputy Press Secretary Jake Siewert, in an official statement, said that the paper rushed to judgment and unfairly "singled out Wen Ho Lee as the primary suspect." In an editors' note on September 26, 2000, the Times acknowledged "flaws" in its first stories, stating that it did not give Dr. Lee "the full benefit of the doubt." Some Asian-American organizations have used this case as a platform from which to teach about discrimination, profiling, and stereotyping and how to avoid them. Henry Tang, the chairman of the Committee of 100, an organization of Chinese-Americans which address issues facing Americans of Asian heritage, fears that "the anti-Chinese hysteria which led to Dr. Lee's indictment and prosecution may reappear whenever tensions or disagreements arise between China and the United States." He says it was this prejudice that was one of the main causes of the "harsh and unjust way that Dr. Lee's case was handled from the outset." The Asian American Journalists Association (AAJA) issued the "Asian American Handbook" to help prevent these prejudices, which gives such tips as recognizing and avoiding racial slurs and an explanation of the differences between China and Taiwan. In addition, Chang-Lin Tien, the former chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, warned against fostering a negative attitude towards Asian Americans. "We can't tolerate spies, but… mistakenly blaming the whole community for one person's actions cannot be tolerated," he said. Websites Resources
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
 Copyright 2003 by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. All rights reserved. |
