Barbara Walters Apologizes for Ugly Conflict of Interest
June 6, 2012 10:59 by Pesach Benson
Barbara Walters fessed up to the Daily Telegraph that her December interview with Bashar Assad involved an ugly conflict of interest.
After Sheherazad Jaafari, Assad’s press advisor, helped Walters get the coveted interview, the ABC News vet threw her weight behind Jaafari’s efforts to get an internship at CNN and a place at Columbia University.
When confronted with the emails, which were obtained by a Syrian opposition group, the 82-year-old ABC broadcaster admitted a conflict of interest and expressed “regret” for her actions.
Bill Carter says Walters’ protekzia was to no avail — Jaafari didn’t make it into Columbia; CNN didn’t even interview her.
Jaafari didn’t just facilitate Walters’ interview with Assad. Emails leaked by the hacker group known as Anonymous show that Jaafari also coached Assad on how to parry Walters’ expected questions. So Walters is taking a beating on forums like Twitter:
Before joining the inner circle of Assad’s spin doctors, Jaafari worked for Brown Lloyd James. Shortly before her arrival at BLJ, the PR firm had facilitated Vogue’s odious profile of the the Syrian dictator’s family life. Assad’s hired media guns are indeed birds of a feather.
It’s not necessarily wrong for contacts in any industry to exchange favors. But Walters acknowledges that she crossed a line. The only winner from these professional courtesies was, uh, Bashar Assad. Carter writes:
One longtime television news executive, who insisted on not being identified commenting on a rival news organization’s employee, said the circumstance was far from unusual in a business where favors are often requested on behalf of contacts.
“It’s a little ugly to see how the sausage is made to land these big interviews,” the executive said, adding that the favors appeared to be the result of an association established by the interview, not a quid pro quo for it.
Dealing with tyrants, news services inevitably have to question the price of access. CNN’s mea culpa for its relationship with Saddam Hussein is worth revisiting.
Related reading: The Mideast PR Machine: From Assad to the Palestinians
jan gillis
12:22 pm
Jun 06, 2012
Barbara Walters will do anything for an interview. She is totally biased to the left and to the Obamas. Time for her to RETIRE,,
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bull
2:02 am
Nov 14, 2012
But she claims everyday how unbiased she is…She along with the rest of them are a joke
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Mike Shapiro
5:11 pm
Jun 06, 2012
I’m not sure I’d characterize Walters as “biased to the left”, but she, long ago, lost any credibility as an honest journalist. She is now simply chasing Celebs, and has done so for two decades.
I’m afraid it is time for her to go to the retirement home.
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Anatoly Tsaliovich
6:58 pm
Jun 06, 2012
How about an apology to thousands killed by Assad?
How about an apology to her Jewish ancestry and today’s Jewish community for supporting one of the most disgusting enemies of Jews and Israel?
Is an interview with the thug’s surrogate and mouthpiece worth of betraying your own people?
Look, even such stalwart anti-Israel entities as CNN and Columbia wouldn’t want this Walter’s protege!
What a shame!
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Barbara Walters entschuldigt sich für schmutzigen Interessenkonflikt « Medien BackSpin
8:31 pm
Jun 06, 2012
[...] HonestReporting Media BackSpin, 6. Juni 2012 [...]
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steven L
8:44 pm
Jun 06, 2012
She is on the side of the rich and INFAMOUS!
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Empress Trudy
9:29 pm
Jun 06, 2012
I think you have to follow the money. There’s likely a financial incentive for Walters to sing the praises of Assad. All Arab dictators have done this for decades. Gadaffy built the London School of Economics to the tune of 10′s of millions of dollars. The Saudis spend billions in the US currying favor and access while building militant schools. Assad clearly is paying off any media types he can.
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The Middle East Media Sampler 5/7/2012 Biden Blames Israel On Stuxnet | Blogs about Israel aggregation
4:04 pm
Jun 07, 2012
[...] Pesach Benson comments: It’s not necessarily wrong for contacts in any industry to exchange favors. But Walters acknowledges that she crossed a line. The only winner from these professional courtesies was, uh, Bashar Assad. [...]
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gigi castlehill
5:25 pm
Jun 07, 2012
Being on the Left, supporting Obama is not synonymous with being anti-Irael. ‘I support Obama because he also supports Israel, as well as any President before him
Hot debate. What do you think?
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LVSteveo1
6:18 pm
Sep 06, 2012
Left, right, all arnd the world. Yes, she’s ‘left-leaning’. No matter – as Der fox Net like to say, “U
decide”. @ least we get some insight into (s—–g) dictator’s/government officials mind & pile of bs
(propaganda) rationalizing their oppressive & suppressive governments. . .
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Middle East Media Sampler for June 7, 2012
9:20 pm
Jun 07, 2012
[...] Pesach Benson comments: [...]
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Dan Martin
3:08 am
Sep 12, 2012
I used to respect and think well of Barbara Walters when I knew nothing about her; that respect is now gone and I wish she would go to a retirement home before she makes any more gross errors like that. Time to quit while you still have some self-respect, Barbara.
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victor redlick
4:45 pm
Nov 05, 2012
Is this
Personal life
Walters has been married four times to three different men. “I’m convinced that you stay married when the sex is bad, only because you really want to be,” she told The New York Times in 1996. “But I always had an out. I had this job, and this life and enough money. I didn’t have to fight the bad days.” In Walters’s autobiography, Audition, she claimed that she had an affair in the 1970s with Edward Brooke, then a married United States Senator from Massachusetts. It is not clear whether Walters also was married at the time. Walters said that the affair ended to protect their careers from scandal. She is by far, embarrassingly, NOT the epitome of integrity.
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Of Gaza War, Israeli Warmongering, WaPo and I | My Sister Eileen
12:18 pm
Nov 23, 2012
[...] You may also like: Islamic Jihad’s Stupid Security Lapse Over ‘Souvenir Photos’ Barbara Walters Apologizes for Ugly Conflict of Interest Top 5 Media Fails: The Media War Hall [...]
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Gaza War, Jewish Propaganda and I : : ?????? ????????
12:32 pm
Nov 23, 2012
[...] You may also like: Islamic Jihad’s Stupid Security Lapse Over ‘Souvenir Photos’ Barbara Walters Apologizes for Ugly Conflict of Interest Top 5 Media Fails: The Media War Hall [...]
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Gaza War, Jewish Propaganda and I « elcidharth
3:59 pm
Nov 23, 2012
[...] You may also like: Islamic Jihad’s Stupid Security Lapse Over ‘Souvenir Photos’ Barbara Walters Apologizes for Ugly Conflict of Interest Top 5 Media Fails: The Media War Hall [...]
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