Hyphen
Published on Hyphen (https://hyphenmagazine.com)

Home > Reporters Held in Contempt in Wen Ho Lee Suit

Reporters Held in Contempt in Wen Ho Lee Suit

Harry Mok - June 29, 2005

A federal appeals court upheld civil contempt findings against reporters [1] whose confidential sources pointed to scientist Wen Ho Lee as a possible spy.

I'm a little torn here bacause as a journalist I believe reporters shouldn't be compelled to reveal sources. However, Lee was totally screwed over by the government and the media that cow-towed to whatever the government said about Lee without really checking it out, as journalists are supposed to do.

Helen Zia's book,My Country Versus Me [2], paints a sympathetic picture of Lee and how he came to be the most dangerous spy suspect ever, until all espionage charges were dropped against him.

A Convenient Spy: Wen Ho Lee and the Politics of Nuclear Espionage [3], I haven't read, but from the descriptions, it is not as sympathetic to Lee's cause.

Maybe we'll never know what really happened and where those missing data tapes are. Maybe Lee was a spy. In any event, the whole case showed how easily Asian Americans are stereotyped and how racial profiling can proliferate in the media.


Source URL:https://hyphenmagazine.com/blog/2005/6/29/reporters-held-contempt-wen-ho-lee-suit

Links
[1] http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050628/ap_on_re_us/reporters_contempt [2] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=hyphenmagazin-20&creative=9325&path=ASIN/0786868031/qid%3D1120073011/sr%3D2-1/ref%3Dpd%5Fbbs%5Fb%5F2%5F1 [3] http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/redirect?link_code=ur2&camp=1789&tag=hyphenmagazin-20&creative=9325&path=ASIN/0743223780/qid%3D1120073011/sr%3D2-2/ref%3Dpd%5Fbbs%5Fb%5F2%5F2