DOCUMENT RESUME ED 473 796 CS 511 781 TITLE Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85th, Miami, Florida, August 5-8, 2002). International Communication Division. PUB DATE 2002-08-00 NOTE 517p.; For other sections of these proceedings, see CS 511 769-787. PUB TYPE Collected Works Proceedings (021) Reports Research (143) EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF02/PC21 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Foreign Countries; Freedom of Speech; Higher Education; *Journalism Education; Mass Media Role; *Media Coverage; *Newspapers IDENTIFIERS Brazil; China; Digital Divide; Environmental Reporting; Estonia; Finland; Great Britain;. Hong Kong; International News; *Journalists; *Middle East; Netherlands; Public Broadcasting; South Korea; Tiananmen Square Uprising; Uganda; Zaire ABSTRACT The International Communication Division of the proceedings contains the following 18 papers: "Spy or Scapegoat: A News Framing Study of the 'New York Times'.' Coverage of the Wen Ho Lee Case" (Jia Lin & Junhao Hong); "Individual Perceptions of International Correspondents in the Middle East: An Obstacle to Fair News?" (Dina Ibrahim); "British vs. U.S. Newspaper Framing of Arabs in Coverage of the Middle-Eastern Conflict Pre and Post Sept. 11: A Case Study" (Mia Moody-Hall); "The Role of Journalism in 19th Century National Movements in Estonia and Finland: Apples and Apples?" (Janis Cakars); "Covering the Dead: U.S. and Chinese Magazine Reportage of the Crackdown on the Tiananmen Square Movement" (Yu Shi); "Perceptions of Brazilian Journalists about Media Roles and Foreign Influences" (Heloiza G. Herscovitz); "Public Broadcasting Systems Demise Within the Dominant Private System Model: The Netherlands Case" (Tony R. DeMars); "Bridging Latin America's Digital Divide: Government Policies and Internet Access" (Eliza Tanner Hawkins and Kirk A. Hawkins); "A Profile of Ugandan Journalists in the New Millennium" (Peter G. Mwesige); "The Media & Foreign Affairs: A Comparative Content Analysis of 'The New York Times" Coverage of Zaire" (Peter G. Mwesige); "Framing Environmental Destruction on U.S. Army Camps in South Korea" (Haejin Yun); "International News Flow and the U.S. News Media: A Model Proposed from a Critical Review of the Literature" (Takuya Sakurai); "Post-Communist Broadcast Media: A Case Study of Estonia's 1994 Broadcast Law" (Max V. Grubb); "Assessing the Hierarchy of Influences Theory of Content: Coverage of the Cultural Revolution in China by 'Time' and 'Newsweek', 1966-69" (Guoli Li and Anne Cooper-Chen); "Press Freedom in Hong Kong Before and After 1997--Newspapers' Coverage of China" (Tianbo Huang, Juyan Zhang, and Yi Lu); "The Possibility of Adoption of the Actual Malice Rule in Foreign Countries: From the Fourth Estate Perspective" (Taegyu Son); "'Glocalizing' a Dam Conflict: 'Thai Rath,' 'Matichon' and Pak Mun Dam" (Suda Ishida); and "Propaganda vs. The Market Economy: A Study of the Conglomeration of China's Newspaper Industry" (Ernest Y. Zhang and Brian S. Brooks). (RS) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication (85th, Miami, FL, August 5-8, 200a,): International Communication Division. PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY 1-4c (c;(( TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) 1 U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproducedas received from the person or organization originating it. Minor changes have been made to improve reproduction quality. Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or policy. 00 BEST COPY AVAILABLE ix- ) 2 News framing of the Wen Ho Lee case Spy or Scapegoat: A News Framing Study of the New York Times' Coverage of the Wen Ho Lee Case by Jia Lin & Junhao Hong Jia Lin Doctoral student Department of Communication School of Infomatics State. University of New York at Buffalo 359, Baldy Hall Amherst, NY 14260 (Tel.)716-645-2141 ext. 1197 (email) [email protected] Junhao Hong Associate Professor Department of Communication School of Infomatics State University of New York at Buffalo 359, Baldy Hall Amherst, NY 14260 (Tel.)716-645-2141 ext. 1183 (email) [email protected] Paper presented in the International Communication Division of the Association for Education, Journalism and Mass Communication 2002 Convention, Miami Beach, FL. Aug. 7-10, 2002 1 3 News framing of the Wen Ho Lee case Abstract Through both traditional and computer-based content analysis of the New York Times' coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case, this article explores how the U.S. mainstream media frame their coverage of news events, especially foreign news events. Based on the findings, this study suggests that a dominant ideology is often behind the news coverage. In addition, the research also finds that U.S. media's biased coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case is more toward China than to Wen Ho Lee. The Cold War ideology is still prevailing in the post-Cold War era 4 2 News framing of the Wen Ho Lee case Spy or Scapegoat: A News Framing Study of the New York Times' Coverage of the Wen Ho Lee Case Introduction Wen Ho Lee, a former nuclear scientist in Los Alamos National Laboratory was once a sizzling topic in all US major media for almost two years from 1999 to 2000, because of his alleged involvement in Chinese espionage against US nuclear bomb technology. The Wen Ho Lee case was often headline news on national TV networks and in many newspapers during that period. Wen Ho Lee himself was once called one of the greatest threats to national security and was cuffed in confinement for nine months. However, he was finally released with an apology from a federal district judge. The Wen Ho Lee case had been full of dramatic moments beginning on March 6, 1999, when the New York Times broke the news about the leak of top nuclear secrets to China. The media publicized Lee as a Chinese spy who stole restricted information for China. Lee was soon fired from Los Alamos Laboratory. Three months later, the release of the COX Report presented to the U.S. Congress brought the "China threat" to a new stage. On the Christmas Eve of 1999, Lee was arrested with 59 felony charges, though none of them was related to espionage. On September 13, 2000, only a few days after claiming that it would be too risky for national security to release Lee even on $lmillion bail, government prosecutors accepted a guilty plea on just one out of 59 charges of improperly transferring restricted information. The government dropped all other 58 charges. The media's role in this event is quite intriguing. The investigation into the possible leak from the Los Alamos National Laboratory had been underway for nearly three years before the New York Times went to the public with a front-page story of more than 4,000 words. Right after the New York Times gave Lee's name away, Los Alamos Laboratory fired Lee under political pressures. One and half years later on September 28, 2000, it was the New York Times again that expressed a "frank regret" for what they had done to Lee. But the newspaper put blame on the government's theory and its view of Lee's espionage for China to justify its biased news coverage. On December 21, 2000, Lee and his family filed a lawsuit against the FBI for leaking their secrets to news organizations and creating a "trial-by media atmosphere" to convince the public that the Lees were Chinese spies. In the New York Times' own words, the Wen Ho Lee case is not only a "government's case," but also a "journalism issues"(NewYork Times, 2000). Hachten(1987) indicates that "all press systems reflect the values of the political and economic systems of the nations within which they operate"(p.16). Other than a window through which to observe 3 5 News framing of the Wen Ho Lee case American politics including foreign policy, juridical system and racial problems, the Wen Ho Lee case also can be used to examine various important aspects of the media, such as the media's relationship with government, the media's influence on public opinion, and the media's bias in news coverage. In the Wen Ho Lee case, the New York Times has admitted its consistent reflection of the government's voice and its biased attitude to Lee due to his Chinese ancestry. Although the newspaper carefully avoided apologies or acknowledgement of inaccuracies, it stated that it could have done more to offer a balanced review of the case. The criticisms of the New York Times for its coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case focus on its unfair and biased "investigative journalism" (Morse, 2000; Hoyt, 2000; Strupp, 2000). Although racial issue has been addressed both by critics and by the public there is no dispute about the Chinese hysteria among the critics and the media who still hold the view that China keeps stealing advanced technology through spies in the US. Previous studies have revealed the media's reliance on government. In particular coverage on international events is often consistent with US foreign policy (Bennet, 1990; Paletz & Entman, 1981; Sundar & Rawlins, 1997). Also media's coverage of minorities tends to be stereotyping and its coverage of foreign countries tends to be biased and negative (Song& Dombrink, 1996; Rachlin, 1988; Chang, etc.1987). Lee's case brings the media's entwinement with the government's policy and the media's racial bias to our attention: Does the U.S. major media's framing of the Wen Ho Lee case reflect government's foreign policy in the grand environment of globalization? This study tries to probe whether and how media framed their coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case and the ideologies behind the framing.