Lee, K. W. (Kyung Won), 1928-

K.W. Lee worked 40 years as an investigative reporter for several mainstream newspapes, most notably, the Sacramento Union. He founded and edited Koreatown, the first national English language Korean American newspaper (1979-1982) and edited The Korea Times English Edition in Los Angeles (1990-1992). In 1978, K.W. Lee galvanized the Asian American community with his investigative series on the Chol Soo Lee case in the Sacramento Union.

Biography

Biographical Narrative

K. W. Lee was born in Kaesong, Korea in 1928. He came to the United States as a student in 1950 and received a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism from West Virginia University in 1953. He continued his education at the University of Illinois, Urbana, where he earned an MA in Journalism in 1955. In his first professional job, Lee served as the City Hall reporter with the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times-News from 1956 to 1957. He became a staff reporter for the Charleston (WV) Gazette from 1958 to 1970.

In 1970, K.W. Lee moved to Sacramento, California to become an investigative reporter for the Sacramento Union . For the next two decades Lee's investigations included corruption in the Sacramento Housing Authority, benefits given to legislators and other state officials, welfare reform, the Rancho Seco nuclear power plant, poverty, and the prison system. His reporting led to new legislation and numerous civic and political reforms. In 1977, he gained national recognition for his investigation into the wrongful conviction of Chol Soo Lee. His articles sparked the first successful pan-Asian political movement and ultimately led to Chol Soo Lee's retrial and full acquittal. K.W. Lee retired from the Sacramento Union in 1990.

In 1979, K.W. Lee founded the first national English-language Korean American newspaper, Koreatown, which lasted until 1982. In 1990, at a time of rising tension between the African American and Korean American communities in Los Angeles and other cities, he launched and edited the Korea Times English Edition, based in Los Angeles. He received the John Anson Ford Award, for print media, by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission for his outstanding coverage of the 1992 Los Angeles riots and "for promoting racial harmony...through journalism and community involvement." Though semi-retired, Lee continued to write for the Korean American community as a columnist for the Korea Times (English daily from 1995 to 1998 and Bi-lingual Edition from 2000 to 2001), Currents: Asian Pacific American newspaper serving Sacramento and Yolo Counties (2000 to 2003), and the KoreAm Journal (2002 to 2003).

K.W. Lee began teaching journalism while still in West Virginia at West Virginia State College in 1969. He became a part-time journalism lecturer at California State University, Sacramento from 1974 to 1979. In 1998, Lee taught investigative writing at UC Davis. He taught investigative journalism at UCLA in 2000 and 2001, and in 2001 he taught investigative journalism at UC Santa Barbara and interethnic studies at UC Riverside. And throughout his career, Lee devoted countless hours to mentoring hundreds of Korean Americans.

Over the course of his career, K.W. Lee received numerous regional and national awards for his work. These include the Paul Tobenkin Memorial Award from the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism (1982), the first Lifetime Achievement Award from the Asian American Journalists Association (1987), and the Free Spirit Award from the Freedom Forum (1994). In 1997, he was inducted into the Newseum's News History Gallery.