I like Diane Sawyer. Whereas I have never met the award-winning television journalist in person, as a former television news reporter, I often studied her work to improve on my own. I certainly don’t think she is perfect (who is), but I must say I disagree with the recent move a fellow journalist made in publicly bashing Sawyer during his review of her primetime TV special on poverty, which airs tonight.
The ABC News special focuses on poverty in the United States; specifically struggling families in Camden, New Jersey. Yesterday Sawyer revealed she was inspired to do the program because many Americans see more images of what poverty looks like overseas than in their own country.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen what poverty looks like in our own country,” said Sawyer. The anchorwoman made the rounds on various talk shows this week to promote the show saying that the ABC special was a year and a half in the making and during that time she spent a night with two of the three Camden families profiled on the program.
Sawyer detailed to other journalists how she was touched by children whose lives are deeply affected by poverty, including a kindergartner named Ivan who, with his mother and younger brother, are frequently homeless and spent months sleeping together on a single chair; Moochie, a 6-year-old girl who’s a bright student dealing with an alcoholic father and parents who fight incessantly; and Billy Joe, a high school senior living with his father and five siblings in a home that frequently has no electricity.
Now, enter a fellow print reporter who wrote a review of tonight’s special with this dig:
“Diane Sawyer is one of the richest TV news personalities, with a salary Forbes magazine reported in 2005 at more than $12 million annually. She can undoubtedly transform these families’ lives with a donation of one or two days’ pay.”
The journalist went on to say that it is “inescapable” that viewers will recognize the irony in Sawyer trying to put herself in the shoes of a man who makes $35 a day.
Sawyer’s response: “We can imagine what everyone is thinking that the resources of ABC News alone can change these lives but our job is to show you the truth of these lives.”
Sawyer added, changing the lives of the families she profiled is not ABC’s role and would be deceptive to viewers. Rather, she says ABC’s website will list organizations that viewers can contact to help the people in Camden, or in any poor city near where they live.
So what do you think? Are the comments about Sawyer warranted?
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