George Clooney wishes good night and good luck to journalism because "Bari Weiss is dismantling CBS"

Clooney believes that without a free press (not to be confused with Weiss’ The Free Press), this country is cooked, especially with the proliferation of AI, which has succeeded at making the misinformation America’s greatest cultural export. “What’s going to happen when we get an AI-generated video of Putin saying he’s launched the first strike?” Clooney asks. “And do we have responsible enough people with their fingers on all the triggers to look at this and separate what’s real from what’s fake? We used to say, don’t believe everything you read, but we always believed what we saw. Now you can’t do that.” It’s incumbent on the fourth estate to make up for the foibles of the three branches of government. But as Clooney rightly notes, many of the pillars of American journalism bent to President Trump’s whims almost immediately and have nothing to show for it except an unchecked authoritarian insurgency. “If CBS and ABC had challenged those lawsuits and said, ‘Go fuck yourself,’ we wouldn’t be where we are in the country.” Unfortunately, CBS and ABC told us to go fuck ourselves and have been used to stifle press freedom. ABC faced a right-wing assault to cancel one of its biggest stars, and CBS canceled an investigation into CECOT.

“It’s a very trying time,” Clooney says. “It can depress you or make you very angry. But you have to find the most positive way through it. You have to put your head down and keep moving forward because quitting isn’t an option.”