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George Clooney, Brad Pitt Team Up For Prop 8 Play

One-off presentation of ‘8,’ directed by Rob Reiner, will be streamed live March 3. By Jocelyn Vena George Clooney Photo: Getty Images If you thought the George Clooney / Brad Pitt bromance was only reserved for “Ocean’s Eleven”” movies, the Golden Globes and the Academy Awards , well, think again. Pitt has just signed on to join his longtime pal for the West Coast production of “8,” a play based on the landmark Proposition 8 trial in California. According to E! News , Pitt will play Prop 8 opposer U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker, and Clooney will play David Boies, an attorney who sought to overturn the highly publicized ban. Written by Oscar-winning “Milk” screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, the play has a star-studded cast that includes Martin Sheen, Christine Lahti, Jamie Lee Curtis, Matthew Morrison, Matt Bomer, Kevin Bacon, Jane Lynch, John C. Reilly, Campbell Brown, Chris Colfer, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Cleve Jones, Rory O’Malley, George Takei, Yeardley Smith, Vanessa Garcia, Jansen Panetierre, James Pickens Jr. and Bridger Zadina, according to CNN . “8” follows the legal process behind the overturning of Proposition 8, the California law that outlawed gay marriage. The play already ran on Broadway last September and will go on tour through 2012, with different actors taking on roles along the way. The one-show-only Clooney-Pitt production takes place on March 3 and will be streamed live on YouTube, according to the American Foundation for Equal Rights and Broadway Impact. Rob Reiner is directing. Clooney recently made headlines when he addressed long-standing gay rumors about himself in The Advocate . “My private life is private, and I’m very happy in it. Who does it hurt if someone thinks I’m gay? I’ll be long dead and there will still be people who say I was gay. I don’t give a sh–.” As for his friendship with Pitt, Clooney said, “People think Brad and I hang out all the time, but the truth is that we see each other very rarely, maybe a couple times a year. I do think we’ve set the bar very high [for other actor duos] … I’m very proud to call him my friend.” Related Videos Oscars 2012: Red Carpet Highlights

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George Clooney, Brad Pitt Team Up For Prop 8 Play

Charles Barkley — Screw Politics … I’m Out!

Filed under: Charles Barkley , Barack Obama , TMZ Sports Charles Barkley — who famously announced his intention to run for Governor of Alabama in 2014 — says he’s officially abandoned his plans to run because politics are a “bad business right now.” As you may recall, Barkley told CNN’s Campbell Brown that… Read more

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Charles Barkley — Screw Politics … I’m Out!

TV Bites: Syfy Stages Swamp Showdown… Between Debbie Gibson and Tiffany

CNN’s Soledad O’Brien Sympathizes With Lesbian Teen’s Plight

On Monday’s Campbell Brown program, CNN’s Soledad O’Brien presented a one-sided report about a lesbian teenager in Mississippi whose senior portrait was left out of her school’s yearbook because she chose to have it taken in a tux, defying the school’s rules. O’Brien commiserated with the teen, asking her at one point, “I want people to understand because other people will say- oh, for God’s sake, it’s just a picture. So explain to us, what does it feel like to not be where you’re supposed to be?” Anchor John Roberts introduced the special correspondent’s near the end of the 8 pm Eastern hour by trying to make a tenuous connection between the report and the continuing major news of the Gulf oil leak: “All eyes are on Gulfport, Mississippi this morning as the President arrived for the first leg of his three-state tour, but about 150 miles north of the Gulf, in a small town called Wesson, the big news this season was all about the high school yearbook. It was here that a teenager’s senior picture triggered an unexpected backlash, and sparked outrage throughout the state.” O’Brien sympathized with Ceara Sturgis, the teen from Wesson, Mississippi, from the start of her report: “For 18-year-old senior Ceara Sturgis, her high school yearbook is more than a collection of memories. It’s about her struggle to be who she is in tiny Wesson, Mississippi, population about 2,000.” After asking the lesbian to describe herself (“18 years old and I’m gay. I don’t like people to push me around, especially when I have the right, and I don’t give up.”), the correspondent continued that “what she didn’t give up on was her fight to get this picture in her yearbook, a picture she took wearing a tuxedo instead of the traditional dress, called a drape.” Later, O’Brien got the closest to providing the other side when she provided quotes from the Wesson high school principal and the district office administrator. But she also let Sturgis and her mother cast the principal in a negative light: O’BRIEN: Principal Ronald Greer refused to print the picture of Ceara in a tux in the yearbook. Neither the principal nor the school’s superintendent would talk with us. After repeated calls, the district office administrator told us- quote, ‘We are done.’ Back in October, the principal told the Jackson TV station, he wasn’t able to comment- quote, ‘on that particular situation.’ Ceara and her mom believe the main reason the photo was vetoed- Principal Greer’s attitude towards homosexuality . The CNN special correspondent got the most sympathetic towards toward the Mississippi teen near the end of her report: O’BRIEN: Shortly after prom, Ceara got her copy of the yearbook. Her portrait wasn’t in it. O’BRIEN (on-camera): Where would you be? STURGIS: Between there and there. O’BRIEN: So you should be like right here. STURGIS: Yeah. I figured that if we kept fighting for a little bit, they would just end up changing their mind because I didn’t think it was a big deal. O’BRIEN: What did it feel like to not be there? STURGIS: It made me sad. O’BRIEN: Well, tell me. STURGIS: It made me feel bad. O’BRIEN: I’m not trying to make you feel bad. But I want people to understand because other people will say- oh, for God’s sake, it’s just a picture. So explain to us, what does it feel like to not be where you’re supposed to be? STURGIS: (crying) It’s not fair. O’BRIEN: Why is it not fair? STURGIS: I don’t know- okay, let’s say we put it in the yearbook, would anyone hurt like I hurt since I’m not in the yearbook? It wouldn’t hurt anyone. O’BRIEN (voice-over): She’s thinking about suing. It won’t put her picture in Wesson’s 2010 yearbook, but she says it may help other gay kids in Mississippi. STURGIS: All right, now just do a serious face. O’BRIEN: And at this point, that’s what Ceara’s thinking about. Reporting, in America, Soledad O’Brien, CNN, Wesson, Mississippi. Roberts hinted that O’Brien had another report on a homosexual teen in the works after her report finished: “And later this week, Ceara’s story inspires another Mississippi teen to stand up and speak out. We’ll have her story.” The anchor also promoted the correspondent’s upcoming one-sided special report ‘Gary and Tony Have a Baby,’ which she recently previewed for homosexual activist group GLAAD . CNN found it fitting to spend an entire four-minute-plus report to this lesbian teen’s plight, but when pro-life activist James Pouillon was murdered in September 2009, the network devoted only one anchor brief to the story: “A shooting spree near Flint, Michigan, leaves two dead. A local anti- abortion activist was killed in a drive by shooting this morning while protesting in front of Owosso High School. The gunman then drove to a local business where he shot and killed the owner. Police arrested a 33-year-old suspect who they say planned to kill a third man.”

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CNN’s Soledad O’Brien Sympathizes With Lesbian Teen’s Plight

TV Bites: Amy Ryan Finds Her Inner Psychotherapist

Now that CNN has covered OxyContin, how do we move the story forward?

This morning I woke to a bunch of messages regarding a report on prescription drug addiction in Florida on CNN's Campbell Brown. With an average of eleven people a day dying of overdoses from prescription drugs in Florida, this story deserves all the attention it can get. When we reported on Broward County's pill mills four months ago in “The OxyContin Express” we were amazed at how little attention this huge national story was getting. As journalists for Vanguard, we are constantly asking ourselves the same questions on every story we pitch, “Has this been done before, and

Anderson Cooper ‘Saves’ Boy as CNN’s Haiti Coverage Reaches Strange Apotheosis

Tonight, Larry King sold his suspenders, Anderson Cooper and Sanjay Gupta saved young Haitians, and Jessica Yellin made a terrible earthquake-related pun. Welcome to the strangest night yet of CNN’s unrelenting prime-time Haiti coverage. CNN has been generally excellent in their Haiti coverage: Where Fox and MSNBC have used the tragedy to pimp their political ideologies and the Today Show’s Ann Curry and Al Roker flew in to be useless , CNN has kept up a steady stream of on-the-ground reports and compelling pictures.

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Anderson Cooper ‘Saves’ Boy as CNN’s Haiti Coverage Reaches Strange Apotheosis