George Clooney recently sat down with Variety while promoting his latest film and offered some sharp criticism of how Paramount’s new CEO, David Ellison, is reshaping CBS News with the installation of Bari Weiss as editor-in-chief.
“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney said. Now, Weiss has invited him to visit the newsroom for himself.
“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney! Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours,” Weiss wrote in a statement shared by Paramount Skydance. “This is an open invitation to visit The CBS Broadcast Center, where I’m spending the holidays working to relaunch the Evening News with my colleagues. Tune in January 5.”
Actor George Clooney sits for an interview – YouTube, The Late Show With Stephen Colbert
Her choice of salutation is likely a reference to Clooney and his family’s recent move to French citizenship. While the tone of her message was friendly, some are interpreting it as a bold challenge.
Clooney’s Relationship with The Press
For years, the relationship between Hollywood and the press has been cordial. In 2005, Clooney directed Goodnight, and Good Luck, a film about Edward R. Murrow and his fight against Republican senator Joseph McCarthy. Twenty years later, Clooney played Murrow in the stage adaptation of his film.
CBS’s 60 Minutes accepted his invitation to sit in on a rehearsal of the play. “When the other three estates fail — when the judiciary and the executive and the legislative branches fail us — the fourth estate has to succeed,” Clooney told the press. He seemed to be giving them a call to action in the early days of the second Trump administration.
Bari Weiss laughs in an interview with Jerry Seinfeld – YouTube, The Free Press
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Now, Clooney is expressing his concern about the country and news media. “Am I worried about film studios? Sure. It’s my business, but my primary loyalty is to my country. I’m much more worried about how we inform ourselves and how we’re going to discern reality without a functioning press.”
The assertion that, under Weiss, the country no longer has a “functioning press” doesn’t seem to be something the CBS editor-in-chief is choosing to ignore. Media journalist Christian Toto notes, “The ‘bonjour’ reference targets the Clooneys fleeing America for France, a dig at a patriot who loves his country so much he decided to live elsewhere. That’s just a surface-level taunt, but a powerful one.”
It’s a signal that under Weiss’s leadership, celebrities like Clooney will no longer be able to give their opinions without pushback.
A Double Standard?
Clooney still has plenty of friends in the legacy media. Variety called Weiss a “conservative commentator,” even though in interviews she has described herself as a “radical centrist.”
When discussing Trump, Clooney said, “His popularity is very low and it’s not going to be shooting back up.” Yet Variety has yet to call him a “liberal commentator.” During Joe Biden’s reelection campaign, the actor hosted a fundraiser with the president. Many were commenting on the president’s apparent cognitive decline even then, though Clooney remained silent.
Former President Joe Biden holds out a hand toward no one – YouTube, Fox Business
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After Biden’s poll numbers dropped, however, Clooney wrote a New York Times op-ed, saying “the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010.” It was a sudden about-face that the media never challenged.
Now, Weiss has gently challenged Clooney’s claims against her. Will the actor accept the invitation from Weiss to visit the CBS newsroom, as 60 Minutes accepted his invitation to a play rehearsal? Whether Clooney accepts the invitation or not, the exchange underscores a shifting media landscape where celebrity opinions are no longer guaranteed deference.
Do you think Clooney will accept Weiss’s invitation? Let us know in the comments!
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If Clooney has any balls at all, he’ll take that offer. But if he really is lost to the Woke Mind Virus, he’ll make some lame excuse why he can’t or claim “I don’t need to visit to know the facts.”
It seems like this is a us vs. them …. But ellisons a Jew, that landed a lesbo, under trump’s regime l……. to bring sanity back?
My distrust with the whole “factory“ has reached its Zenith.
Jewdo is the strongest deflection strategy.
The only “white” people that can get away with the same strategy as the black.
antisemitism seems to be a fake…
“Get away with it card.” Dirty don rickles was the worst of the pulling the,…. Black card.
Remember when Charlie Sheen called our Chaim as….. Chuck.
Most of you retards fund channyakah, even though you don’t celebrate it.
What’s “bob” iger’s real Jewish name? hymie?
ellison Tribe
Weiss Lesbo
iger Tribe
zaslav Tribe
Any white dude that watches the output from the rothschids deserves losing his money.
Love. Team Bari. This is just another reason why I support the Ellisons winning the WBD bid and taking over the partisan hack organization known as CNN to turn it into an organization that actually does journalism.
Traitor in the midst.
What a traitor Clooney is. Foreigners should be banned from politics.