After receiving a master's degree from the University of Illinois in 1955, he worked for daily newspapers such as the Kingsport Times-News in Tennessee and the Charleston Gazette in West Virginia.
He has won awards from the National Headliners Club, the AP News Executive Council, and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
[2] Lee covered the civil rights struggles in the South in the early 1960s, massive vote-buying practices in southern West Virginia, and the plight of Appalachian coal miners.
Lee is best known for writing an investigative series on the conviction of immigrant Chol Soo Lee for a 1973 San Francisco Chinatown gangland murder which became the basis of the 1989 film True Believer, starring James Woods and Robert Downey Jr. His series of 120 articles over five years led to a new trial, eventual acquittal and release of the prisoner from San Quentin's Death Row.
to serve on the editorial board of ColorLines Magazine and has freelanced as a columnist for Currents, The Korea Times Bi-lingual Edition, Korean Quarterly and KoreAm Journal.