Parody
Parody From the Editors The Times and Wen Ho Lee When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the Newspaper of Record to review its own magnificent performance on a given story, we...
...Many other news organizations reported that he had in fact passed the test...
...Upon looking back at that story, we found careful reporting, an accurate perspective on the issues at stake and a prose style that was at once portentous but also limned with a saucy hint of irony...
...If we had to do it all over again, we would have instructed them to be co-opted by their sources in the defense team...
...We even remain proud of our pride...
...We wish to inform you, however, that having examined every aspect of ourselves, we find ourselves as supreme as ever, fully meriting the regal tone which we have adopted here and which we will continue to employ as time goes by...
...For example, the story was too short...
...As we were rereading our own prose, we found ourselves swept up in the majestic cadences, the delicate turns of phrase, and then all of a sudden— boom—the piece was over...
...Parody From the Editors The Times and Wen Ho Lee When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for the Newspaper of Record to review its own magnificent performance on a given story, we at The New York Times (download sound of trumpets by clicking here) can be counted on to coat our niggling admissions of imperfection with great towering dollops of self-praise...
...In those instances where we fell short of our lofty standards in our coverage of this story, the fault lies with Abe Rosenthal, whom we continue to blame for everything even though he's left the paper...
...For example, we reported in our April 9 front page story "Guilty...
...On March 6, 1999, The New York Times reported that government investigators believed China had accelerated its nuclear weapons programs with the aid of stolen American secrets...
...Guilty...
...There are some competing journalists, mostly those who don't get as many leaks fed to them on a silver platter as we do, who have faulted the way the Times handled the story as it evolved...
...Early on, we concede, we should have opened up a second line of inquiry, one that got the story right...
...Our reporters had been co-opted by their sources in the prosecution...
...Their reporting did not take into account our more nuanced discussion, which questioned the whole epistemology of passing and failing, lying and truth...
...Yellow Menace in the Lab" that Wen Ho Lee had failed a lie detector test...
...Some, for example, have faulted our March 23 story "The Chinaman Did It" for whipping up a McCarthyite frenzy...
...We also found that our articles were often echoed and oversimplified by politicians and less sophisticated news organizations...
...Not since Pamela Anderson last looked in the mirror has a great American institution been subjected to such a pitiless self-gaze...
...After reviewing the record, we remain proud of our work...
...Next time we shall endeavor to make articles of this nature at least as long as our annual 59-part series "Race in America," which allows readers really to sink into each article over the course of weeks, if not years...
...And so it is in that spirit of self-affirmation that we review our coverage of the case of Wen Ho Lee...
...Guilty...
...But before getting to the substance of the case, let us first contemplate the fact that this newspaper is so admirable it is willing to boldly stand before the public and make a show of scrutinizmg itself...
...Unfortunately, we also found some things we wish we had done differently...
...In fact, we remain proud of our review...
...This is of course an oversimplification...
Vol. 6 • October 2000 • No. 4
