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Comment by mturmon | Hacker News Reader

Yes, very true.

A couple of things about the Wen Ho Lee case. The first is that the NYT presented leaked documents and innuendo from unnamed sources about Lee's culpability. All this turned out to be either not true or completely blown out of proportion.

The second is that Robert Scheer, a reporter for the LA Times (back then) and The Nation magazine, and now editor of Truthdig.com, really risked his reputation in defending Lee when he was under attack by the major media.

Scheer ended up winning an award for his work, and as you mention, Lee got a $1.6M settlement from the media and from the government. For more: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060606_robert_scheer_l...

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Lee's lawsuit was over the privacy breach of the investigation against him by government leakers, most of the information leaked about him was true, it was just wrapped in false speculation and innuendo by the reporting that linked his documented, suspicious activity to the alleged espionage that has as far as I know never been proven to even exist. The media companies settled with Lee because they didn't want to be in a supreme court case where they were subpoenaed for the identities of their anonymous sources. There are two separate issues, one is if Lee was a valid suspect (yes he was) and the other is did the government engage in a leak and smear campaign against him to try to bridge the gap for their lack of evidence that Lee was actually guilty of espionage (yes it did.)

> The first is that the NYT presented leaked documents and innuendo from unnamed sources about Lee's culpability. All this turned out to be either not true or completely blown out of proportion.

Now that we know that parallel construction is a tool used by intelligence agencies, along with discrediting targets as another routinely used device, when are we going to mandate "citation or GTFO" from the already-discredited media?

I too wonder as to why the credibility of media orgs like NYT isn't questioned inspite of acting as lapdogs in several cases..

The credibility of media organizations like the NYT is questioned all the time.

The questioners are rarely treated seriously by media organizations like the NYT, but they still certainly exist.

That's not likely to change, but it would be nice to see them taken a little more seriously by news consumers.

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