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Being shameless must come with working for a bloodthirsty dictator.
Sheherazad “Sherry” Jaafari, the New York media consultant for Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad, asked for a job with TV interviewer Charlie Rose while trying to arrange a one-on-one sit-down between him and the embattled president, newly released e-mails show.
It was the exact same quid-pro-quo she used with Barbara Walters after she helped the legendary newswoman land an exclusive chat with Assad on Dec. 6, 2011.
“As I said, I love u and I would love to be ur assistant. Let me know if you need anything from Syria,” Jaafari, a CUNY Hunter grad, wrote to Rose on Jan. 23.
“I will try to push for an interview for u to conduct too,” she wrote, according to the e-mails obtained by Al Arabiya English, part of the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya Satellite News Channel.
Rose, the co-anchor of “CBS This Morning,” and host of his own evening PBS interview show, replied quickly.
“There are very few windows in my day providing opportunities to talk,” he wrote.
“Would you prefer I arrange an interview with others on my staff who have a lighter schedule?”
Neither Rose, 70, his executive producer Yvette Vega, nor Jaafari could be reached for comment.
Ultimately, Rose never scored an interview with Assad.
But Bashar Jaafari, her diplomat father, did appear on his PBS show on April 11, 13 months after Syrian forces began a bloody crackdown against protesters.
Jaafari, 22, had also asked Walters for a job, while handling arrangements for the Assad exclusive throughout 2011.
While Walters refused to hire her outright, she did write a glowing recommendation to Columbia University journalism professor Richard Wald asking him to do what he could to help her get accepted in early 2012, and he readily agreed.
Jaafari will begin the master’s program at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs in the fall. Walters and Wald have since apologized.