BARBARA WALTERS
Scored Assad exclusive.
FINE SHERRY: Stunner Sheherazad Jaafari with diplomat dad Bashar al-Jaafari. She got into an elite Columbia graduate program, at least in part thanks to an assist from Barbara Walters. (
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Barbara Walters gets it done.
The sultry Syrian press aide who helped Walters snag an exclusive interview with dictator Bashar al-Assad was admitted to Columbia University after the legendary newswoman intervened, The Post has learned.
Former media adviser Sheherazad “Sherry” Jaafari, 22, has been accepted to the fall 2012 class of Columbia’s ultra-competitive School of International and Public Affairs, said Jesse Gale, an associate dean.
Her admission to the prestigious master’s program — which typically rejects four out of five applicants — came after Walters assured Jaafari she’d give her application an insider’s boost.
“I applied for Columbia and hope to get accepted. If there is any way you think you can give my application a push, I would really, really appreciate it. You did mention you knew a professor there,” Jaafari wrote Walters on Jan. 24 this year, about six weeks after the headline-getting Assad interview aired.
“I will buy you some jewelry from Syria,” she continued to Walters, whom she called her “adopted mother.”
“Let me know if you need anything else from here.”
Two days later, according to e-mails exposed by Syrian opposition engaged in a civil war with Assad loyalists, Walters went into action.
“This young woman, whose résumé is attached, is the [daughter] of the Syrian Ambassador to the UN. She helped arrange my interview with Assad. She is only 21 but had his ear and his confidence,” she wrote to Columbia’s Graduate School of Journalism lecturer Richard Wald, the former chief of ABC News.
Walters, 82, apparently confused the journalism program with SIPA.
“I have recommended her as an intern to your son [CNN producer Jonathan Wald] for Piers Morgan. She is applying to Columbia School of Journalism. She is brilliant, beautiful, speaks five languages. Anything you can do to help?”
Wald, who lectures on ethics, replied the next day.
“The degree she is applying for is not in the Journalism school, but in International Affairs. However, through the Admissions Officer network, I will get them to give her special attention. I am sure they will take her,” he wrote. Columbia downplayed Wald’s role.
“Ms. Jaafari was admitted based solely on the submitted application materials,” Columbia’s Gale said. “We cannot comment on an individual applicant’s materials, which are confidential.”
Walters and Jaafari had been in close contact throughout 2011, especially after the protests in Syria turned into a bloody uprising in March.
The two mingled together during a March 2011 party at her father’s Manhattan apartment, a diplomatic source said.
“She was bragging that they had a great relationship after she came to her house for a cocktail party,” the source said.
On Tuesday, Walters expressed “regret” for her actions and claimed that Jaafari wasn’t admitted to Columbia.
Her spokesman yesterday said she was unaware that Jaafari had indeed been accepted and said no talk of help with Columbia or CNN occurred before the Assad interview.