Several months into Bari Weiss’ stint as editor-in-chief of CBS News, George Clooney condemned the commentator for “dismantling CBS News” as she reconfigures the news network.
“Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS News as we speak,” Clooney told Variety in a cover story tied to the release of “Jay Kelly.” “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.”
Concerns regarding Weiss’ appointment as the head of CBS News have mounted since her installment in October, and has only escalated amid news that she pulled a “60 Minutes” segment on the Trump administration’s deportation of Venezuelan migrants to a megaprison in El Salvador, which she later said was “not ready” and failed to “advance the ball.”
Clooney, however, noted the trouble surrounding CBS News’ head traces back to Donald Trump’s lawsuit with “60 Minutes,” which Paramount settled for a whopping $16 million, which cleared the way for the Skydance merger to receive approval from Trump’s FCC. “If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go, f–k yourself, we wouldn’t be where we are in the country,” Clooney said. “That’s simply the truth.”
It wasn’t just the manner in which Paramount ushered along the Skydance merger that Clooney took issue with, but also the massive mergers happening within the entertainment industry, like Paramount-Skydance, as well as the upcoming sale of Warner Bros. to Netflix, which is also being pursued by Paramount via a hostile takeover bid.
“I liked having separate studios, and I liked them for what they were each good at, and that kind of specialization has gone away,” Clooney said. “I worry about things all getting rolled up into one giant company. That would be a very sad moment. Sometimes a big company buys all these little players, and they all lose their identity.”
The political climate and struggling media landscape makes for what Clooney calls a “very trying time.” “It can depress you or make you very angry, but you have to find the most positive way through it,” he said. “You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option.”
It’s an especially strange conundrum for Clooney, who once knew Trump, then a reality star unattached to politics, “very well.” “He used to call me a lot, and he tried to help me get into a hospital once to see a back surgeon,” Clooney said. “I’d see him out at clubs and see him out at restaurants. He’s a big goofball. Well, he was. That all changed.”
Despite some Democrats’ fears that Trump will run for a third term, Clooney is confident he’ll have to give up his seat at the White House, saying “his popularity is very low and it’s not going to be shooting back up.” “We do have a constitution that we do abide by, and although I’ve been disappointed by many of the Supreme Court’s decisions, they are strict constitutionalists,” Clooney said.
