Bari Weiss fires back at George Clooney's claim she is 'dismantling' CBS News: 'This is an open invitation'
- - Bari Weiss fires back at George Clooney's claim she is 'dismantling' CBS News: 'This is an open invitation'
Mekishana PierreJanuary 1, 2026 at 1:15 AM
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Bari Weiss; George Clooney
Bari Weiss is responding after George Clooney took aim at her recently taking the helm of CBS News and "dismantling" the news network.
"Bonjour, Mr. Clooney," Weiss said in a statement shared with The New York Post, referencing the actor recently being granted French citizenship. "Big fan of your work. It sounds like you'd like to learn more about ours."
She continued, offering the A-Lister 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."
Noam Galai/Getty
Bari Weiss attends an event in 2024
Weiss, who was hired in October after Paramount acquired her independent news and opinion site, The Free Press, has been setting the stage for a broad and controversial overhaul of the news division. Her first act as editor-in-chief was launching a new town hall series, the first of which featured Erika Kirk, the widow of conservative personality Charlie Kirk, who was killed earlier this year.
The conservative commentator's management of the news network made headlines after she pulled a 60 Minutes segment covering the stories of Venezuelan men deported out of the U.S. by the Trump administration and taken to a notorious El Salvador maximum-security prison.
The segment was the latest of several covering the Trump administration's highly controversial mass deportations of immigrants, of which 50 percent of adults disapprove, according to a recent study from the Pew Research Center.
In an email to fellow correspondents obtained by the Wall Street Journal, Sharyn Alfonsi, who has worked on 60 Minutes for a decade, wrote that Weiss "spiked our story" in a decision she deemed political, and not an editorial call.
Alfonsi wrote that the team had asked Weiss to discuss her last-minute call, but "she did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity." She continued, "If the standard for airing a story becomes 'the government must agree to be interviewed,' then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state."
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Weiss defended her decision in a statement to outlets shortly after Alfonsi's email went viral on social media. "My job is to make sure that all stories we publish are the best they can be," she said. "Holding stories that aren't ready for whatever reason — that they lack sufficient context, say, or that they are missing critical voices — happens every day in every newsroom. I look forward to airing this important piece when it's ready."
But Weiss wasn't the only target for Clooney's ire; the Jay Kelly star also called out major media corporations ABC and CBS for acquiescing to President Donald Trump via lawsuit settlements during a time the star deemed particularly precarious.
Araya Doheny/Getty
George Clooney attends 'Jay Kelly' premiere in 2025
"If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, 'Go f--- yourself,' we wouldn't be where we are in the country. That's simply the truth," Clooney declared, adding that he's grown more concerned about Trump's increasing influence over the media as David Ellison, Paramount Skydance's new owner, has seemingly been shaping CBS News' coverage in a more MAGA-friendly way.
CBS News and Paramount didn't immediately respond to Entertainment Weekly when reached out for comment.
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