What would you do if you were an editor, and you came to understand that some important work done by your newspaper had been flawed?
For many an editor, the answer has been: little or nothing. A good teaching editor might discuss the work internally, hoping the staff would learn from it. But to let the public in on an acknowledgment of error?
At best–assuming a cold hard fact was indisputably wrong–there might be a stinting, largely impenetrable correction (perhaps passed off under the not-so-mea-culpa heading, “clarification”). But to address publicly the truthfulness of the work as a whole? To assess its fairness and balance? To discuss what should have been written that wasn’t?
It is rarely done. Which is why The New York Times made news–and set a precedent–with its Sept. 26 piece bylined “The Editors,” about coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case.
The Los Alamos scientist’s name came to national attention when he was fired in March 1999 for “serious security violations”–two days after the Times ran a front-page “special report” saying U.S. government officials believed espionage had helped China advance its nuclear weapons program.
The Times’ continuing coverage was powerful. One official was quoted calling the case second in seriousness only to the Rosenbergs’. In the search for the wrongdoer, as another quote had it, Lee had “stuck out like a sore thumb.”
By November, the journalism magazine Brill’s Content said the Times had been “largely responsible for fueling the scandal and portraying Wen Ho Lee as a traitor.” Also, Warren Rudman, head of the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, said on “Meet the Press,” “The agenda for the body politic is often set by the media. Had it not been for The New York Times breaking the story of Chinese espionage all over the front pages, I’m not sure I would be here this morning.”
Little wonder the Times coverage drew fire when, earlier this month, a judge apologized to Lee–who pleaded guilty to one count of wrongdoing–and freed him, amid charges of racial profiling of the Taiwan-born Lee.
As the Times editors put it, “The outcome of the prosecution and the accusations leveled at this newspaper may have left many readers with questions about our coverage. That confusion–and the stakes involved, a man’s liberty and reputation–convince us that a public accounting is warranted.”
It was indeed warranted–and to respond as the editors did was an honorable act on the part of America’s most influential newspaper.
Not that the response was flawless. The Times said the criticism had come from “competing journalists and media critics and from defenders of Dr. Lee.” They were being way too easy on themselves. Scientists, political figures and others with no particular ax to grind with the Times joined in the chorus. Worse, there were factual errors the Times failed to acknowledge. But far more important was what the paper did do. Editors said they had failed to maintain a “journalistic detachment from our sources,” and to “give Dr. Lee the full benefit of the doubt.” They regretted they “did not pay enough attention to the possibility that there had been a major intelligence loss in which the Los Alamos scientist was a minor player, or completely uninvolved.”
The Times’ self-assessment came only after a couple of other responses, far more typical in their defensiveness and lack of candor. Last February, the investigations editor, Stephen Engelberg, carried on pompously and at great length when he blasted back at the Brill’s Content piece–which now looks sound indeed. And the paper had reflected internal unease with initial coverage, adding a reporter, shifting the tone and emphasis–without any acknowledgment of concern about the earlier work.
Still, what’s most important is that the Times has created a very powerful precedent with this lengthy and forthright self-assessment. The Times may be unusual, and its coverage more likely to draw the kind of attention that provokes such a response. Yet every newspaper has a like impact on its community. And few have ever owned up to the inevitable errors of judgment, tone or balance.
My hunch is that the presence of the Internet–where much of the criticism first appeared and where the rest of it was widely reported–was a key reason the Times went public with this response. Which makes me hopeful that we’ll be seeing this Net effect more broadly–and for many years to come.
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E-mail: overholserg@washpost.com
