Settlement In Wen Ho Lee Privacy Suit; ABC (& Others) Pay Up, But CNN Declines

“Wen Ho Lee, the former nuclear weapons scientist once suspected of being a spy, settled his privacy lawsuit Friday and will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations in a case that turned into a fight over reporters’ confidential sources,” the AP reports. The $750,000 payment — by AP, NYT, LAT, WP, and ABC News — “is the only one of its kind in recent memory.”

Pierre Thomas, who reported about Lee for CNN before moving to ABC News, was subpoenaed in the case. CNN declined to join in the settlement “because we had a philosophical disagreement over whether it was appropriate to pay money to Wen Ho Lee or anyone else to get out from under a subpoena,” the company said in a statement.

“The settlement ends a prospect that the reporters, including Pierre Thomas of ABC News, could be sent to jail for protecting their sources,” Brian Ross reports…