Brenda Plascencia (left) with Anderson Cooper and Walter Isaacson. Photo: Brenda Plascencia
One 2025 grad got a taste of journalism history—and its future—at a live broadcast of Good Night and Good Luck, the hit Broadway play starring George Clooney that aired live on CNN earlier this month.
Brenda Plascencia is wrapping up her coursework in Fordham’s MA in Public Media program this summer, but she already has a growing resume in the world of journalism. As a graduate assistant at WFUV, she reports primarily on music, arts, and culture around New York City, and produces What’s What, the station’s daily news podcast.
An Inside Look at the CNN Studios
WFUV received the invitation from CNN, which was seeking student journalists and professors to be audience members for the performance and panel discussion afterward. The invitation was a stroke of luck for Plascencia, who had wanted to catch the show before it left Broadway, but the ticket prices had been too steep.
“I like George Clooney, so I was excited about the opportunity, and I’ve always wanted to see the CNN studios as well,” Plascencia said.
Julianne Welby, a journalist and senior lecturer in Fordham’s Department of Communication and Media Studies, was also in the audience. It “felt special to see the first ever live broadcast of a Broadway show, and even better that it was with a room full of journalism professors and students,” Welby said.
Good Night and Good Luck ran for three months on Broadway before its live broadcast on CNN.
A Great Story about a Legendary Journalist
Good Night and Good Luck is an adaptation of a 2005 film of the same name, also starring George Clooney. It tells the story of legendary CBS journalist Edward R. Murrow as he helped to expose the tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy during the height of the Red Scare, a moral panic in the 1940s and ‘50s when suspected communist sympathizers were persecuted.
The play, which finished its Broadway run June 8, offers a thought-provoking reflection on journalistic integrity and the cost of speaking the truth in a repressive political climate. Today, Murrow’s story stands as a reminder that “we have been through difficult times, challenging times, and that we survived it as a country,” Clooney told CNN.
Plascencia had expected a movie-theater-like setting, but when she arrived she was happy to find that the setup was intimate, with a small group of students and educators encircling the actors.
The show lived up to her expectations.
“I was pretty invested. It’s a great story,” she said.
Reflecting on Journalism in 2025 with Anderson Cooper
After the show, Anderson Cooper led a discussion featuring a powerhouse lineup of journalists: Abby Phillip, Jorge Ramos, Walter Isaacson, Bret Stephens, Kara Swisher, and Connie Chung—whom Plascencia had met last year when Chung was honored by WFUV.
Plascencia (left) poses with Connie Chung and other students. Photo courtesy Brenda Plascencia
It was a “civil discussion that allowed us to hear divergent views about the state of journalism today, and without the cacophony and futility of people talking over each other,” Welby said.
Midway through the discussion, breaking news about the ICE protests in Los Angeles interrupted the panel. As an LA native, Plascencia was excited to have a behind-the-scenes view as Cooper broke news about her hometown. “It was cool to have that experience of sitting in the audience and seeing news about my city being broadcast,” she said.