Ahh, the catty wars of the distaff Democrat newsreaders. “Couric Accused Sawyer Of Trading Head For Headlines,” the Daily Caller quips, quoting from the err, juiciest detail from Sheila Weller’s upcoming book, The News Sorority:
It’s a battle of the female news anchors in veteran journalist Sheila Weller’s tell-all book, “The News Sorority,” which outlines the fiercely competitive careers of Katie Couric, Diane Sawyer and Christiane Amanpour. Though the book doesn’t hit shelves for a full month, its revelations are prematurely exploding everywhere.
The Daily Beast published some highlights, and perhaps the most shocking is how Katie Couric and Diane Sawyer allegedly fought for exclusive stories:
“When Diane beat Katie on an interview with a 57-year-old woman who’d given birth to twins, Katie mused aloud, according to a person who heard the comment: ‘I wonder who she blew this time to get it.’”
And speaking of whom, “As Diane Sawyer Signs-Off, a Look Back at Her Fawning Chats With Repressive Dictators,” from Scott Whitlock of NewsBusters:
World News anchor and long-time ABC journalist Diane Sawyer signed off for the last time on Wednesday night. The host’s final show included a music montage as she offered a behind the scenes look at how the program is created. Sawyer praised World News as “the flag ship broadcast of ABC where Peter Jennings created a signature of such curiosity and courage.”
Talking to viewers, Sawyer said of the people behind her show: “Determination and the certainty of purpose: They’re doing it for you.” [See video below. MP3 audio here.] Sawyer joined ABC in 1989 and if there’s been one constant during her long career, it’s been fawning, credulous reporting on dictators. On February 19, 2008, she cooed over Fidel Castro: “From a tiny island, a larger than life personality….Castro knew life is a stage and played the part of the dashing revolutionary, coming to New York, getting rock star treatment.”
Here are some of Sawyer’s most gushing reporting on repressive regimes, starting off with a trip to North Korea:
Whitlock notes that while meeting with a group of young brainwashed North Korean students, Sawyer described them as living in “a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school.”
Yes, we wouldn’t want our viewers to have to deal with too much of that unruly American individualism! And Diane’s rival Katie Couric certainly doesn’t — just a reminder, during Thanksgiving week in November of 2009, as the late Noel Sheppard of NewsBusters spotted back then, Couric used a rewritten version of “The Night Before Christmas” to plump for Obamacare:
Twas just weeks before Christmas and what do you know
Senate Democrats are once again praying for Snowe.
They won 60 votes to start the debate
But they’re back to square one and the just have to wait.
Wait for Blue Dogs like Nelson and Lincoln
Who say a public option would mean the economy sinkin’.
Wait for Joe Lieberman who says it won’t pass
And hope Mary Landrieu can change her mind fast.
The Republican votes right now total zero
But a trigger could make one woman a hero.
The moderate who hails from the land way up north
Could save Harry Reid’s Christmas with a deal she brought forth.
Urging government plans for when private ones fail
To think: both sides happy, can both sides prevail?
At this point no compromise looms within sight
That means after Thanksgiving it’s on with the fight.
Enjoy your turkey and know we’ll be here
To help make this tough topic just a little more clear.
Gosh, and to think viewers tuned her out droves shortly thereafter — I wonder why?
And finally, from the world of distaff Democrats with bylines, Rachel Maddow transformed herself into a neocon so slowly, only Moe Lane happened to notice:
Mind you, I agree that ISIS needs to be squashed like an absolute bug. I just wish that I had a time machine. It would be priceless to see the reaction on 2004-Rachel Maddow’s face when she saw video evidence that 2014-Maddow was now committing herself to a morals-based, easy-to-escalate campaign in Iraq and Syria. Or, shoot, the look on June-2014 ‘Iraq is the new South Vietnam**!’ Maddow’s face. Because I’m pretty sure that Maddow was kind of arguing back then that, hey, the Communist takeover worked out all right over there, hey? She certainly didn’t want to go back into Iraq then.
Seriously, this is why you pick your principles first, and then let your policy positions be informed by them. Because when you don’t – when you pick what you want to do, and don’t bother working out why you would want to do it – then you end up like Rachel Maddow. Because she’s not really a neoconservative, you see. If Maddow was, she’d have a moral center to her universe that was simply better than Barack Obama wants to do this, and I trust him implicitly. And she wouldn’t be required to change her opinions every three months, because the problem here is that Barack Obama here has no moral center that’s better than I want to do this, and I trust myself implicitly.
Presumably Maddow is simply returning to the opinion she and the rest of the American left held in 1998:
[jwplayer player=”1″ mediaid=”74878″]
Let’s give Diane Sawyer the exit quote, which connects the dots on this post rather nicely. “You know, I wanted to sit on a jury once and I was taken off the jury. And the judge said to me, ‘Can, you know, can you tell the truth and be fair?’ And I said, ‘That’s what journalists do.’ And everybody in the courtroom laughed. It was the most hurtful moment I think I’ve ever had.”
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