At 9pm EST/PST (8pm CST/MST) on Friday night (Dec. 8), ABC will air a special edition of Primetime, “North Korea: Inside the Shadows” which will feature Diane Sawyer recounting what she found in that communist nation during a trip there back in October. If her hour-long program matches what aired in October, be prepared for a lot of North Korea officials bashing President Bush and for Sawyer to trumpet “happy” kids.
On the October 19 World News, Sawyer proved little more than a conveyor belt for the repressive communist regime's propaganda. Talking to a North Korean Army General, she relayed how “he said to us, 'make it clear to everyone in the United States, if there is another nuclear test, the person responsible is George Bush,' because he said, 'the Bush administration is backing North Korea into a corner with its pressures and its sanctions.'" In a second segment, Sawyer was taken to a school which she favorably described as “a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school." She gushed: “Ask them about their country, and they can't say enough." A teenage girl declared, in English: “We are the happiest children in the world.” Sawyer ended her piece with video of her and the class singing "Do-Re-Mi" from the Sound of Music. Far from being embarrassed by Sawyer's obsequious approach, anchor Charles Gibson proposed: "A fascinating glimpse of North Korea."
Video clip of Sawyer's segment with the school children (1:09): Real (1.9 MB) or Windows Media (2.7 MB), plus MP3 audio (340 KB)
My October 20 NewsBusters item, “Sawyer Relays NK Propaganda Blaming Bush & Touting 'Happiest Children in the World,'” provided a full transcripts of Sawyer's pieces with the General and the kids and noted how Sawyer's sycophantic segments were reminiscent of Bob Woodruff's reports from North Korea back in June of 2005 as documented in the June 10, 2005 MRC CyberAlert article, “ABC: North Koreans Hate Americans, Offer Great Music/Art for Kids.”
—Brent Baker is Vice President for Research and Publications at the Media Research Center
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
Diane cannot be that stupid t
December 8, 2006 - 18:11 ET by msh1973Diane cannot be that stupid to think that she actually saw the real N. Korea. Get a clue Diane.
Tokyo Rose
December 8, 2006 - 18:11 ET by iveseenitallI thought Tokyo Rose passed on recently. Sawyer's a traitor.
NEVER,NEVER trust a liberal
On the gushing over North Korea
December 8, 2006 - 18:13 ET by UnsaneOh, I just CANNOT WAIT for this total GUSH-FEST!!!
Remember, nothing bad EVER happens on the Left; the regime of the Kims and the Korean Worker's Party should be judged solely on the basis of their good intentions!
(Never mind that in the 13 months I lived in South Korea, I never once saw a mass exodus of Koreans streaming North...)
"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy." -Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)
Bush is backing NK into a cor
December 8, 2006 - 18:52 ET by mattmBush is backing NK into a corner???? Holy excrement! All they have to do is act like normal, peace-loving, human beings....
Media people who go to enemy countries (countries not in good diplomatic standing with us) and take sides against our president should be prosecuted as traitors.
Diane Sawyer: The living emb
December 8, 2006 - 19:33 ET by KimberlyDiane Sawyer: The living embodiment of the term "Useful Idiot". Sheesh.
Dizzy Diane: disseminating the BIG-LIE
December 8, 2006 - 20:09 ET by PlaceboA typical Socialist BIG-LIE, touted by another mass-media dunderhead. The leftist elitists did the same during the USSR, Ukraine, early 30’s famine, when millions died, in fact, murdered, for the collective effort. So Dizzy Diane, you’re in good company, well, if you’re a Socialist disseminating North Korea’s Big-Lie: this woman is a wankette.
I agree with Kimberly
December 9, 2006 - 16:56 ET by Chicago RepublicanYou are 100% correct, Kimberly. My term for the MSM is "The Useful Idiots". Wife and I were watching this last night and it was almost comical to see Sawyer talking to Red Sox fans in Pyongyang. I looked at my wife and said, "You see, this is EXACTLY why I call them The Useful Idiots." I'm sure Kim Jong IL gave Sawyer the Madeline Albright award for good diplomacy. He'd be hard pressed to write a better propagand film himself. I liked Sawyer's trip to the "Christian Church" in Pyongyang as well. HALLELUJAH, I'm sure many Kim's find Jesus on a daily basis there. YES, Yes indeed, TESTIFY!
I used to think the same th
December 10, 2006 - 16:10 ET by FairlightI used to think the same thing -- until the last election.
I don't the word 'useful' really applies anymore, it's more like 'harmful'.
Bush should've had the Stat
December 8, 2006 - 20:46 ET by PSOSBush should've had the State Department temporarily revoke her passport while she was there so she couldn't get out. I somehow doubt spending a few weeks starving in a police state would make her the happiest woman in the world. But at least she would no longer be the stupidest.
too much?
December 8, 2006 - 21:09 ET by acumenI presume it would be asking too much for Sawyer to do a hard-hitting piece on Kim Jong Ill's no dong launch erector problem.
Kim Jong Ill's no dong problem might explain why the N Korean school girl made the comment that they are "the happiest children in the world."
Wasn't this special filmed af
December 8, 2006 - 21:22 ET by tracheostomyWasn't this special filmed after the NK missile test(s) that freaked everyone out? What the hell is ABC thinking???
-PJ
http://www.draftcondi.us/
Wasn't it the Bard who said
December 8, 2006 - 21:26 ET by Jack BauerWasn't it the Bard who said "First kill all the Sawyers"?
Clever chap, that Will.
Though I do like the Sawyer on Lost, far more than the perpetually metrosexual Jack Shepard. Like there's a parallel universe anywhere where Kate picks him over the rougish conman.
A disgrace to manly Jacks worldwide.
Proud member of the all-powerful and vast
militarist/industrialist/capitalist/zionist-bagelist complex
I'm watching it now. Two th
December 8, 2006 - 22:25 ET by Eric ArrI'm watching it now. Two things strike me:
1) Sawyer talks in a patronizing, "teaching" tones as if Americans have "no idea" what North Korea is like. Its called Google Video and "North Korea," Dianne. Try it.
2) Sawyer seems compelled to compare things in North Korean society, like the cultish worship of Kim Jong Il, to an American equivalent. I believe the quote was "Kim jong Il is like a cross between George Washington and an earth-bound diety."
Guess we're all brainwashed cult-worshipping morons desperately in need of this kind of "education."
Yawn. Watch the Google vids on North Korea. You'll learn a lot more. The only good thing? Great video of the Nazi-like tendencies of the populace.
Sawyer was taken to a schoo
December 9, 2006 - 03:23 ET by MyKindaSpamSawyer was taken to a school which she favorably described as “a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school." She gushed: "Ask them about their country, and they can't say enough."
I have a feeling that Sawyer would have a different view if there were millions of American kids in classrooms who all think alike and have intensly patriotic beliefs about their country and profess great, unwavering love for George Bush.
Somehow, I think her "gushiness" would be replaced with suspicion, distaste and condemnation. Think about the different attitude toward the kids in NK and the kids in Jesus Camp. Brainwashing is brainwashing. I guess I've always harbored the hope that Sawyer may be biased, but she was still a reporter who could recognize obviously bad situations, like brainwashed kids and a totalitarian regime that starve its citizens while the leader jets around to rock concerts and buys iPods, but I was
wrong.
Sawyer didn't go to...
December 9, 2006 - 03:53 ET by SportPoliticsSo Saywer didn't go to kimche mud city where they serve human flesh as fish in the mud and dust market makeshift open huts and children scrounge for grain scraps ground into the earth under bare feet ? Gee, she doesn't know what she was missing.
You think these reporters that drive to any huckville in the USA would wonder what the countryside wrought in N Korea.
How about all the poor North
December 9, 2006 - 10:43 ET by kathleenirishHow about all the poor North Koreans who flee to China and get caught and sent back? What do you think happens to them, you f"n idiot?!!! What do you think about the fact that half-Korean, half-Chinese children are considered some kind of horrorible abomination because of the racism on both sides against the other. Yes, racism between Koreans and Chinese!!! It's bad, bad, bad. Do you think the North Korean children or women who are put into sex bondage are happy? Oh, but that's right, you don't know how to think outside of your demented liberal bias, "blinders on!" whenever you report, I mean, propagandize for despots... You are a total ignoramus and have entered my top-ten list of who REALLY deserve to be smacked, and smacked HARD. Traitorous piece of garbage is too good a moniker for the likes of you. You are a traitor to the poor souls who are victims of Mentally Kim-Jong Ill, as well, not just to the United States of America and the men and women who stood against the communist North Koreans in the Korean War. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Yeah, North Korea, the example of the good life for over 60 years. You are a total, scary joke of a 'jounalist', Ms. Sawyer. YECK!
"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare, and he who has one enemy will meet him everywhere" -Ali ibn-Abi-Talib, 4th Islamic Caliph
Does N. Korea also have an obesity problem? Like we do?
December 9, 2006 - 11:06 ET by acaiguanaDoes N. Korea also have an obesity problem? Like we do?
I would invite Sawyer to an elementary school in any small town in the USA. Well, maybe not the Village that Hillary wrote about. Or did that exist?
Oh well...
ACA
...
Acaiguana says: "Ya can't win if ya don't play."
kathleen - additionally, it s
December 9, 2006 - 15:48 ET by Unsanekathleen - additionally, it seems that Miss Sawyer, in her rush to be an apologist for the North Korean regime, missed an esay-to-find section of The Black Book of Communism. Not only do they deal with half-Korean/half-Chinese citizenry very harshly, the North Koreans also show no qualms about murdering citizens for that unpardonable crime of being born with a disability. Sounds an awful lot like a society from the 1930s and 1940s we all know and hate, does it not?
For anyone else that is interested, there is an entire chapter on North Korea in the aforementioned book.
"Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy." -Sir Winston Churchill, British statesman (1874-1965)
The leftists are nuts or comm
December 9, 2006 - 16:20 ET by bigtimerThe leftists are nuts or communistic theirselves...no doubt about it...they gush and gush over the countries that have dictators...unbelievable these people still spew their daily and nightly lying vitriolic propagandist garbage....when is enough ever going to be enough?
When pigs fly?
"Once the coffers of the federal government are opened to the public, there will be no shutting them again." - Grover Cleveland
Sawyer is in that group of
December 9, 2006 - 16:45 ET by John in CASawyer is in that group of reporters who will go to any length to find the most undesireable and seamiest side of American life and society in an effort to prove that we are not the great nation we proclaim to be.
But they'll go to a Stalinist country and parrot the propaganda that the central propaganda department feeds to them.
Uck!
Give a Democrat Party free America a chance!
PRC - People's Republic of
December 9, 2006 - 16:48 ET by John in CAPRC - People's Republic of China
GDR - German Democrat Republic (formerly East Germany)
DPRK - Democrat People's Republic Korea
Ever notice that when a nation glosses itself with people or democrat in it's nation's name, it's never for the people nor democratic?
Give a Democrat Party free America a chance!
I wounder if Diane found time
December 9, 2006 - 19:46 ET by TeamAmericaI wounder if Diane found time to pose atop an anti-aircraft gun a la Hanoi Jane?
Fascinating Glimpse
December 9, 2006 - 20:27 ET by allanfI don't know about you, but I'd like a dollar for every time a network anchor has uttered the phrase "A fascinating glmpse"