Diane Sawyer Reports on Potemkin Village in North Korea

North Korean schools are a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school...The students there snap to attention, shouting out their answers, including the differences between the sounds of British and American English...If you ask them about their country, they can't say enough. It's the most beautiful country in the world, they say. They are the happiest children anywhere. It is the most wonderful place to live under the leadership of Kim Jong Il..."We are the happiest children in the world, thanks to Kim Jong Il," one student told me. It is a strange sound for American ears, considering that North Korea is one of the most isolated nations in the world...The children are proud of their racial purity as well....Diane Sawyer Tours North Korean School, ABC News, 10/19/2006

Let's run part of that again. "North Korean schools are a world away from the unruly individualism of any American school...the children are proud of their racial purty as well...." Is this what's called "objective" journalism? Visit a tightly select "example" of North Korean life, look at a highly controlled school, make disparaging comparative remarks about American schools? This strikes me as being about as representative a "cluster" as the ones selected by the Johns Hopkins study on Iraqi casualties in the current war. Perhaps Diane Sawyer will next interview the 47 people chosen to "represent" the situation in Iraq.

Luther