CBS News boss Bari Weiss is sending a message to George Clooney after the actor criticized her management of the news network.
The editor in chief issued an open invitation for Clooney to visit her newsroom and playfully mocked his move to France.
“Bonjour, Mr. Clooney!,” wrote Weiss in a statement shared with The New York Post. “Big fan of your work. It sounds like you’d like to learn more about ours. 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.”
The statement was apparently in response to an interview Clooney gave to Variety, where the actor said, “Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak. 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.”
Clooney also criticized CBS and ABC for settling costly lawsuits filed by President Trump that many felt were specious. “If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go, fuck yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney says. “That’s simply the truth.”
Clooney previously co-wrote and directed the 2005 film Good Night, and Good Luck, chronicling legendary CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn). Clooney also recently played the role himself in Broadway production of the film.
France recently granted citizenship to Clooney, his wife Amal, and their twins, Ella and Alexander.
“I was worried about raising our kids in L.A., in the culture of Hollywood,” Clooney told Esquire in an interview published in October. “I don’t want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don’t want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids.”
According to NBC News, the Clooneys live in a luxury 18th-century villa outside the town of Brignoles in southern France.
Weiss has come under criticism for her handling of CBS News since Paramount CEO David Ellison hired The Free Press founder in October. Amid fears that Weiss doesn’t have enough experience for the role and would shift the organization politically to the right, Weiss recently held a 60 Minutes report on Trump’s immigration policies that alleged human rights abuses at a prison in El Salvador.
“No amount of outrage — whether from activist organizations or the White House — will derail us,” Weiss wrote in a staff memo defending the decision. “We are not out to score points with one side of the political spectrum or to win followers on social media. We are out to inform the American public and to get the story right.”
In response to Weiss’ decision and comments, 60 Minutes correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi sent her colleagues a message challenging Weiss’ decision and depiction of the story’s vetting. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and standards and practices. It is factually correct,” Alfonsi wrote. “In my view, pulling it now — after every rigorous internal check has been met — is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
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