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With 'Origin,' Ava DuVernay illuminates America's racial caste system
Ava DuVernay describes her new movie Origin, which is based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, as “a film about a woman in pursuit of an idea.”
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Ava DuVernay describes her new movie Origin, which is based on Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste, as “a film about a woman in pursuit of an idea.”
Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Academy Museum
When filmmaker Ava DuVernay first read Isabel Wilkerson’s 2020 book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, she was so stunned, she reread it twice. The bestselling book draws a line between India’s caste system, the hierarchies of Nazi Germany and the historic subjugation of Black people in the United States.
“It took me a really long time to wrap my mind around the idea that there’s something underneath racism that’s called caste,” DuVernay says. “It doesn’t mean racism doesn’t exist. It means the foundation, the root, the origin, underneath is the very simple premise — someone has to be better than someone else.”
DuVernay was warned that Caste was too complex to adapt into a film but with each reading she felt a story emerge more clearly. Her new movie, Origin, centers on Wilkerson, played by Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, as she explores how understanding the caste system can deepen our understanding of what Black people experience in America. DuVernay describes it as “a film about a woman in pursuit of an idea.”
The movie opens with a portrayal of the 2012 killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin at the hands of George Zimmerman. DuVernay says Wilkerson cited Zimmerman’s acquittal as the impetus behind the ideas she would write about in Caste.
“I remember when [Wilkerson] was sharing that with me, I thought, ‘Oh, wow, could [the film] open on that? Could the spark that sparked her spark the film?’” DuVernay says. “Trying to stay close to and honor her process, her life, her genius — I wanted to start where she started.”
DuVernay’s previous films include the historical drama Selma, about Martin Luther King Jr.’s 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., and 13th, an Oscar-nominated documentary about mass incarceration. Her 2019 Netflix drama series, When They See Us, tells the story of the five young men who were falsely convicted in the 1989 Central Park jogger case.
DuVernay hopes that by releasing Origin in 2024 — an election year — the film will contribute to the country’s ongoing conversation about race and power.
“In order to do that, I believe we need new language. We need to become fluent in concepts and constructs that we currently are not,” she says. “And so it was very important to me that this film be made … and that it reached people while folks were considering the future of our country.”
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Caste author Isabel Wilkerson in Origin.
Atsushi Nishijima/Neon
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Atsushi Nishijima/Neon
Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor plays Caste author Isabel Wilkerson in Origin.
Atsushi Nishijima/Neon
Interview highlights
On reading Caste, and learning how Nazis were influenced and inspired by American racism
I’m an African American studies major, English major, UCLA. Read quite a bit – had not come across that bit of information that Nazis had been influenced by the blueprints of the American South segregation policies. That actually they had sent scholars and people to study it, to bring it back. So when I read it in her book, it was fascinating to me. But I had to go look at that stuff myself and read it myself.
It’s not widely known. And so there’s certainly scholarship out there other than Isabel Wilkerson’s that shares that information, but none that I’d ever heard of. So when I’m sitting there and I’m reading the actual notes, the actual transcriptions, the actual letters, it’s astounding. It’s very matter of fact. And in some spaces, the Germans are shocked and surprised and appalled by some of the things that were done in America and said, “That’s taking it a little too far.” … Really shocking. But certainly that’s a part of the book, and this is what I basically did is, all of the parts in the book where my jaw dropped, I put that in the movie.
The book burning scene in Origin was filmed in a square in Berlin in which the Nazis burned books in 1933.
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On filming a Nazi book burning scene in Germany
This was one of the sequences that I’m the most proud of. This film was made completely outside of the studio system. So it was made independently. And it was made by a small Black-woman-owned, Black-people-run company. It was me and my producing partner, Paul Garnes, and that was it. … And we found ourselves as two African American independent producers in Germany asking the city of Berlin to allow us to photograph and film a recreation of a book burning on the actual site where it happened. That was our request. And we got a “yes.”
So we shot this scene on Bebelplatz, and this is a square in which there is an actual monument to this book burning. And the monument is called the Empty Library, where you can look down into the ground. There’s a hole in the ground, a square in the ground, where you look down into rows and rows of white empty bookshelves to commemorate and symbolize the books that were burned. And so we recreated the whole book burning on that plaza, to stand there on that cobblestone and to know that that had happened in that place and that I was able to, with my comrades, tell the story to a modern audience so that that moment is not forgotten, and that moment is connected to experiences that we are having right now where we are — wherever in the world you are — the idea that ideas and imagination is at risk, the idea that books are dangerous, the idea that we can forget about our past lives by just taking them off the shelves.
On filming a scene in India with a Dalit man whose job requires him to remove human waste from public latrines by hand
This scene was one that was shocking to me, and learning about the fact that there are people to this day whose profession is that of manual scavenging. … I wanted to show and share what that looks like and what it takes for a human being to be required — expected — to degrade themselves to perform that service, just to eat, just to exist. …
And with these particular men, I wanted to find people who actually did that job. So what you are watching are men – that is what they do. That is how they live. And so I went to an advocacy group, and they had two men who were willing to perform the act on camera. … And of course, I’m not having any human being get in excrement. We created what was needed for the scene with oatmeal and food coloring. … I came to them and they came over to the set area and through a translator, I was describing what it was, and the man … looked at me and he said through the translator, “I think we should do it for real.” And his point was, people must know what is happening. Will this look real? They have to know. They need to see the truth, is what he was saying. And I promised him. And so it took a little convincing to have him go into the safe set.
On changing hierarchical language on the film set
[My cinematographer, Matt Lloyd, pointed out] when [you] look at a film set and a crew, there’s a hierarchy embedded in the very names in which we call each other by our titles, by our position titles. And we have A-cam and we have a B-cam … we have basically junior people and they’re all called these things. So as they come to the table, they’re already defined and they’re already told at that circular table who’s important. And so we try to break those down. And [our cinematographer] did an incredible job in his department of renaming everything. There was no first camera and second camera. There was an “east camera” and a “west camera.” And there were lots of little ways that we just tried to address and play with and push against this idea of caste, simply in the idea of how do we organize ourselves.
On awards season and if she cares about winning
I’m grappling with my own shame in the wanting, and I’m disappointed in myself that I am feeling that the film is not achieving those industry benchmarks. It is happening because of forces outside of my control. … It’s somewhat alarming to me … that it has hurt and it has surprised me how much I am hurt by the fact that Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor is not being recognized for that work. It breaks my heart. I feel that she should have every flower. This is how I feel for David Oyelowo and Selma. I felt like, what? Why? And as I’ve moved through the industry, I understand the why, but it doesn’t make it any [easier]. And so it really makes me lean more into the independence, more into, ‘What matters, Ava?’ What matters is there’s not a screening that I have for this film and a Q&A that I have for this film where someone does not walk up to me, lock eyes with me, touch my hand and tell me what it meant. Tell me what they got from it. Tell me what the hell they felt like. Nothing else matters.
On being a Black woman, and rising outside of her caste because of professional success
Having read the book many times, studied the book, made the film about the book, my understanding of it is this: While you and I may be sitting here and we might be successful in our careers, what it has taken for us to be in these spaces is a different trajectory than what has taken what our white male counterparts have gone through to be in their spaces. In addition to that, outside of this space, when we’re walking down the street, where we’re in the department store, when we’re in various spaces where our scholarship or careers or intellect is unknown, and we are seen only by our outward facing traits — it doesn’t matter, and we are not on the same footing. And that’s the way this society functions. And so that’s part of what her book, I believe, asked me as a reader to think about, is to really drill down into it and not allow ideas about it to kind of sit inside of soundbites and easy questions. But this is really insidious stuff that affects us all. And it’s an invitation to address it, explore it, think about it.
Lauren Krenzel and Seth Kelley produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web.
Elvis Presley in Las Vegas in Aug. 1970.
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“You are my favorite customer,” Baz Luhrmann tells me on a recent Zoom call from the sunny Chateau Marmont in Hollywood. The director is on a worldwide blitz to promote his new film, EPiC: Elvis Presley in Concert — which opens wide this week — and he says this, not to flatter me, but because I’ve just called his film a miracle.
See, I’ve never cared a lick about Elvis Presley, who would have turned 91 in January, had he not died in 1977 at the age of 42. Never had an inkling to listen to his music, never seen any of his films, never been interested in researching his life or work. For this millennial, Presley was a fossilized, mummified relic from prehistory — like a woolly mammoth stuck in the La Brea Tar Pits — and I was mostly indifferent about seeing 1970s concert footage when I sat down for an early IMAX screening of EPiC.
By the end of its rollicking, exhilarating 90 minutes, I turned to my wife and said, “I think I’m in love with Elvis Presley.”
“I’m not trying to sell Elvis,” Luhrmann clarifies. “But I do think that the most gratifying thing is when someone like you has the experience you’ve had.”
Elvis made much more of an imprint on a young Luhrmann; he watched the King’s movies while growing up in New South Wales, Australia in the 1960s, and he stepped to 1972’s “Burning Love” as a young ballroom dancer. But then, like so many others, he left Elvis behind. As a teenager, “I was more Bowie and, you know, new wave and Elton and all those kinds of musical icons,” he says. “I became a big opera buff.”
Luhrmann only returned to the King when he decided to make a movie that would take a sweeping look at America in the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s — which became his 2022 dramatized feature, Elvis, starring Austin Butler. That film, told in the bedazzled, kaleidoscopic style that Luhrmann is famous for, cast Presley as a tragic figure; it was framed and narrated by Presley’s notorious manager, Colonel Tom Parker, portrayed by a conniving and heavily made-up Tom Hanks. The dark clouds of business exploitation, the perils of fame, and an early demise hang over the singer’s heady rise and fall.
It was a divisive movie. Some praised Butler’s transformative performance and the director’s ravishing style; others experienced it as a nauseating 2.5-hour trailer. Reviewing it for Fresh Air, Justin Chang said that “Luhrmann’s flair for spectacle tends to overwhelm his basic story sense,” and found the framing device around Col. Parker (and Hanks’ “uncharacteristically grating” acting) to be a fatal flaw.
Personally, I thought it was the greatest thing Luhrmann had ever made, a perfect match between subject and filmmaker. It reminded me of Oliver Stone’s breathless, Shakespearean tragedy about Richard Nixon (1995’s Nixon), itself an underrated masterpiece. Yet somehow, even for me, it failed to light a fire of interest in Presley himself — and by design, I now realize after seeing EPiC, it omitted at least one major aspect of Elvis’ appeal: the man was charmingly, endearingly funny.
As seen in Luhrmann’s new documentary, on stage, in the midst of a serious song, Elvis will pull a face, or ad lib a line about his suit being too tight to get on his knees, or sing for a while with a bra (which has been flung from the audience) draped over his head. He’s constantly laughing and ribbing and keeping his musicians, and himself, entertained. If Elvis was a tragedy, EPiC is a romantic comedy — and Presley’s seduction of us, the audience, is utterly irresistible.
Unearthing old concert footage
It was in the process of making Elvis that Luhrmann discovered dozens of long-rumored concert footage tapes in a Kansas salt mine, where Warner Bros. stores some of their film archives. Working with Peter Jackson’s team at the post-production facility Park Road Post, who did the miraculous restoration of Beatles rehearsal footage for Jackson’s 2021 Disney+ series, Get Back, they burnished 50-plus hours of 55-year-old celluloid into an eye-popping sheen with enough visual fidelity to fill an IMAX screen. In doing so, they resurrected a woolly mammoth. The film — which is a creative amalgamation of takes from rehearsals and concerts that span from 1970 to 1972 — places the viewer so close to the action that we can viscerally feel the thumping of the bass and almost sense that we’ll get flecked with the sweat dripping off Presley’s face.
This footage was originally shot for the 1970 concert film Elvis: That’s The Way It Is, and its 1972 sequel, Elvis on Tour, which explains why these concerts were shot like a Hollywood feature: wide shots on anamorphic 35mm and with giant, ultra-bright Klieg lights — which, Luhrmann explains, “are really disturbing. So [Elvis] was very apologetic to the audience, because the audience felt a bit more self conscious than they would have been at a normal show. They were actually making a movie, they weren’t just shooting a concert.”
Luhrmann chose to leave in many shots where camera operators can be seen running around with their 16mm cameras for close-ups, “like they’re in the Vietnam War trying to get the best angles,” because we live in an era where we’re used to seeing cameras everywhere and Luhrmann felt none of the original directors’ concern about breaking the illusion. Those extreme close-ups, which were achieved by operators doing math and manually pulling focus, allow us to see even the pores on Presley’s skin — now projected onto a screen the size of two buildings.
The sweat that comes out of those pores is practically a character in the film. Luhrmann marvels at how much Presley gave in every single rehearsal and every single concert performance. Beyond the fact that “he must have superhuman strength,” Luhrmann says, “He becomes the music. He doesn’t mark stuff. He just becomes the music, and then no one knows what he’s going to do. The band do not know what he’s going to do, so they have to keep their eyes on him all the time. They don’t know how many rounds he’s going to do in ‘Suspicious Minds.’ You know, he conducts them with his entire being — and that’s what makes him unique.”
Elvis Presley in Las Vegas in Aug. 1970.
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It’s not the only thing. The revivified concerts in EPiC are a potent argument that Elvis wasn’t just a superior live performer to the Beatles (who supplanted him as the kings of pop culture in the 1960s), but possibly the greatest live performer of all time. His sensual, magmatic charisma on stage, the way he conducts the large band and choir, the control he has over that godlike gospel voice, and the sorcerer’s power he has to hold an entire audience in the palm of his hands (and often to kiss many of its women on the lips) all come across with stunning, electrifying urgency.
Shaking off the rust and building a “dreamscape”
The fact that, on top of it all, he is effortlessly funny and goofy is, in Luhrmann’s mind, essential to the magic of Elvis. While researching for Elvis, he came to appreciate how insecure Presley was as a kid — growing up as the only white boy in a poor Black neighborhood, and seeing his father thrown into jail for passing a bad check. “Inside, he felt very less-than,” says Luhrmann, “but he grows up into a physical Greek god. I mean, we’ve forgotten how beautiful he was. You see it in the movie; he is a beautiful looking human being. And then he moves. And he doesn’t learn dance steps — he just manifests that movement. And then he’s got the voice of Orpheus, and he can take a song like ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water’ and make it into a gospel power ballad.
“So he’s like a spiritual being. And I think he’s imposing. So the goofiness, the humor is about disarming people, making them get past the image — like he says — and see the man. That’s my own theory.”
Elvis has often been second-classed in the annals of American music because he didn’t write his own songs, but Luhrmann insists that interpretation is its own invaluable art form. “Orpheus interpreted the music as well,” the director says.
In this way — as in their shared maximalist, cape-and-rhinestones style — Luhrmann and Elvis are a match made in Graceland. Whether he’s remixing Shakespeare as a ’90s punk music video in Romeo + Juliet or adding hip-hop beats to The Great Gatsby, Luhrmann is an artist who loves to take what was vibrantly, shockingly new in another century and make it so again.
Elvis Presley in Las Vegas in Aug. 1970.
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Luhrmann says he likes to take classic work and “shake off the rust and go, Well, when it was written, it wasn’t classical. When it was created, it was pop, it was modern, it was in the moment. That’s what I try and do.”
To that end, he conceived EPiC as “an imagined concert,” liberally building sequences from various nights, sometimes inserting rehearsal takes into a stage performance (ecstatically so in the song “Polk Salad Annie”), and adding new musical layers to some of the songs. Working with his music producer, Jamieson Shaw, he backed the King’s vocals on “Oh Happy Day” with a new recording of a Black gospel choir in Nashville. “So that’s an imaginative leap,” says Luhrmann. “It’s kind of a dreamscape.”
On some tracks, like “Burning Love,” new string arrangements give the live performances extra verve and cinematic depth. Luhrmann and his music team also radically remixed multiple Elvis songs into a new number, “A Change of Reality,” which has the King repeatedly asking “Do you miss me?” over a buzzing bass line and a syncopated beat.
I didn’t miss Elvis before I saw EPiC — but after seeing the film twice now, I truly do.
“You kinda have this Wednesday Addams vibe going on.”
I shrieked.
I was wearing my best armor: a black dress that accentuated my curves, a striped bolero to cover the arms I’ve resented for years and black platform sandals displaying ruby toes. My dark hair was in wild, voluminous curls and my sultry makeup was finished with an inviting Chanel rouge lip.
I would’ve preferred the gentleman at the speed dating event had likened my efforts to, at least, Morticia, a grown woman. But in this crowd of men and women ages ranging from roughly 21 to 40, I suppose my baby face gave me away.
My mind flitted back to a conversation I had with my physical therapist about modern love: Dating in L.A. has become monotonous.
The apps were oversaturated and underwhelming. And it seemed more difficult than ever to naturally meet someone in person.
She told me about her recent endeavor in speed dating: events sponsoring timed one-on-one “dates” with multiple candidates. I applauded her bravery, but the conversation had mostly slipped my mind.
Two years later, I had reached my boiling point with Jesse, a guy I met online (naturally) a few months prior who was good on paper but bad in practice.
Knowing my best friend was in a similar situationship, I found myself suggesting a curious social alternative.
Much of my knowledge of speed dating came from cinema. It usually involved a down-on-her-luck hopeless romantic or a mature workaholic attempting to be more spontaneous in her dating life, sitting across from a montage of caricatures: the socially-challenged geek stumbling through his special interests; the arrogant businessman diverting most of his attention to his Blackberry; the pseudo-suave ladies’ man whose every word comes across rehearsed and saccharine.
Nevertheless, I was desperate for a good distraction. So we purchased tickets to an event for straight singles happening a few hours later.
Walking into Oldfield’s Liquor Room, I noticed that it looked like a normal bar, all dark wood and dim lighting. Except its patrons flanked the perimeter of the space, speaking in hushed tones, sizing up the opposite sex.
Suddenly in need of some liquid courage, we rushed back to the car to indulge in the shooters we bought on our way to the venue — three for $6. I had already surrendered $30 for my ticket and I was not paying for Los Angeles-priced cocktails. Ten minutes later, we were ready to mingle.
The bar’s back patio was decked out with tea lights and potted palm plants. House-pop music put me in a groove as I perused the picnic tables covered with conversation starters like “What’s your favorite sexual position?” Half-amused and half-horrified, I decided to use my own material.
We found our seats as the host began introductions. Each date would last two minutes — a chime would alert the men when it was time to move clockwise to the next seat. I exchanged hopeful glances with the women around me.
The bell rang, and I felt my buzz subside in spades as my first date sat down. This was really happening.
Soft brown eyes greeted me. He was polite and responsive, giving adequate answers to my questions but rarely returning the inquiry. I sensed he was looking through me and not at me, as if he had decided I wasn’t his type and was biding his time until the bell rang. I didn’t take it personally.
Bachelor No. 2 stood well over six feet with caramel-brown hair and emerald eyes. He oozed confidence and warmth when he spoke about how healing from an accident a few years prior inspired him to become a physical therapist.
I tried not to focus on how his story was nearly word-perfect to the one I heard him give the woman before me. He offered to show me a large surgery scar, rolling up his right sleeve to reveal the pale pink flesh — and a well-trained bicep. Despite his obvious good looks and small-town charm, something suspicious gnawed at me. I would later learn he had left the same effect on most of the women.
My nose received Bachelor No. 3 before my eyes. His spiced cologne quickly engulfing my senses. He had a larger-than-life presence, seeming to be a character himself, so I asked for his favorite current watch.
“I love ‘The Summer I Turned Pretty,’” he actually said.
“Really?”
“Oh yeah, it’s my favorite. Oh, and ‘Wednesday.’ You kinda have this Wednesday Addams vibe going on.”
I was completely thrown to hear this 40-something man’s favorite programs centered around teenage girls, and by his standards, I resembled one of them. Where was the host with the damn bell?
Although a few conversations clearly left impressions, most of the dates morphed into remnants of information like fintech, middle sibling, allergic to cats, etc. Perhaps two minutes was too short to spark genuine chemistry.
After a quick lap around the post-date mingling, we practically raced to the car. A millisecond after the doors closed, my friend said, “I think I’m going to call him.” I knew she wasn’t referring to any of the men we met tonight. The last few hours were all in vain. “And you should call Jesse.”
I scoffed at her audacity.
When I arrived home and called him, it only rang once.
The following three hours of witty banter and cheeky innuendos were bliss until the call ended on a low note, and I remembered why I tried speed dating in the first place.
Jesse and I had great chemistry but were ultimately incompatible. He preferred living life within his comfort zone while I craved adventure and variety. He couldn’t see past right now, and I was too busy planning the future to live in the moment.
Still, in a three-hour call, long before the topic of commitment soured things, we laughed at the mundanity of our day, traded wildest dreams for embarrassing anecdotes, and voiced amorous intentions that would make Aphrodite’s cheeks heat.
Why couldn’t I have had a conversation like that with someone at the event?
It’s possible I was hoping to find the perfect replica of my relationship with Jesse. But when I had the opportunity to meet someone new, I reserved my humor and my empathy.
Also, despite knowing Jesse and I weren’t a good match, I thought we had a “chance connection” that I needed to protect. In reality, if I had shown up to speed dating as my complete self, that would have been more than enough to stir sparks with a new flame.
It would be several more weeks before I was ready to release my attachment to Jesse. But when I did, I had a better appreciation for myself and my capacity for love.
The author is a multidisciplinary writer and mother based in Encino.
L.A. Affairs chronicles the search for romantic love in all its glorious expressions in the L.A. area, and we want to hear your true story. We pay $400 for a published essay. Email LAAffairs@latimes.com. You can find submission guidelines here. You can find past columns here.
Editor’s note: On April 3, L.A. Affairs Live, our new storytelling competition show, will feature real dating stories from people living in the Greater Los Angeles area. Tickets for our first event will be on sale starting Tuesday.
Warner Bros. Discovery said Thursday that it prefers the latest offer from rival Hollywood studio Paramount over a bid it accepted from Netflix.
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Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Bloomberg
The Warner Bros. Discovery board announced late Thursday afternoon that Paramount’s sweetened bid to buy the entire company is “superior” to an $83 billion deal it had struck with Netflix for the purchase of its streaming services, studios, and intellectual property.
Netflix says it is pulling out of the contest rather than try to top Paramount’s offer.
“We’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid,” the streaming giant said in a statement.
Warner had rejected so many offers from Paramount that it seemed as though it would be a fruitless endeavor. Speaking on the red carpet for the BAFTA film awards last weekend, Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos dared Paramount to stop making its case publicly and start ponying up cash.
‘If you wanna try and outbid our deal … just make a better deal. Just put a better deal on the table,” Sarandos told the trade publication Deadline Hollywood.
Netflix promised that Warner Bros. would operate as an independent studio and keep showing its movies in theaters.
But the political realities, combined with Paramount’s owners’ relentless drive to expand their entertainment holdings, seem to have prevailed.
Paramount previously bid for all of Warner — including its cable channels such as CNN, TBS, and Discovery — in a deal valued at $108 billion. Earlier this week, Paramount unveiled a fresh proposal increasing its bid by a dollar a share.
On Thursday, hours before the Warner announcement, Sarandos headed to the White House to meet Trump administration officials to make his case for the deal.
The meetings, leaked Wednesday to political and entertainment media outlets, were confirmed by a White House official who spoke on condition he not be named, as he was not authorized to speak about them publicly.
President Trump was not among those who met with Sarandos, the official said.
While Netflix’s courtship of Warner stirred antitrust concerns, the Paramount deal is likely to face a significant antitrust review from the U.S. Justice Department, given the combination of major entertainment assets. Paramount owns CBS and the streamer Paramount Plus, in addition to Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and other cable channels.
The offer from Paramount CEO David Ellison relies on the fortune of his father, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. And David Ellison has argued to shareholders that his company would have a smoother path to regulatory approval.
Not unnoticed: the Ellisons’ warm ties to Trump world.
Larry Ellison is a financial backer of the president.
David Ellison was photographed offering a MAGA-friendly thumbs-up before the State of the Union address with one of the president’s key Congressional allies: U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a Republican.
Trump has praised changes to CBS News made under David Ellison’s pick for editor in chief, Bari Weiss.
The chair of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, told Semafor Wednesday that he was pleased by the news division’s direction under Weiss. She has criticized much of the mainstream media as being too reflexively liberal and anti-Trump.
“I think they’re doing a great job,” Carr said at a Semafor conference on trust and the media Wednesday. As Semafor noted, Carr previously lauded CBS by saying it “agreed to return to more fact-based, unbiased reporting.”
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