As a self-confessed information junkie, I am hooked on HBO’s The Newsroom. Initially, it was the workplace dramedy’s core conceit that caught my attention: a moderately popular cable program rebrands itself as a truth-telling arbiter, one that would rather chase hard news than pander to ratings. That the imaginary characters weigh in on actual events of the very recent past the storyline is backdated to the spring of 2010 made the series even more interesting. Since I happen to work in a similar environmnent, I was all too familiar with the topics around which the first six episodes have revolved, from the BP oil spill and the Tea Party movement to the Gabrielle Giffords shooting and the abandonment of the Glass-Steagall Act.
While my co-workers and I neither dress as spiffily nor engage in dense, sparkling office banter, The Newsroom’s make-believe staffers, a team that dares to be good, do good, and instill good Don Quixote-style in this age of editorial incontinence are nonetheless very real and relevant to me. There’s Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels), a well-paid TV anchor who, following a very public rant at a college panel discussion, makes it known that he is a member of the “media elite” who’s on a “mission to civilize.” News Night executive producer Mackenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) is a journalist in the Christiane Amanpour mold, with 26 months in Afghanistan and a past as Will’s one-time fiancée.
The younger newshounds of Atlantis Cable News are simultaneously entertaining and irritating. Resident Internet nerd Neal Sampat (Dev Patel) smothers his colleagues with his Bigfoot pitch when not tracking down possible stringers to cover the Tahrir Square protests. Agitated newbie Maggie Jordan (Allison Pill) is torn between her patronizing boyfriend Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski) and her boss Jim Harper (John Gallagher Jr.), with whom she flirts openly. Maggie can be so irrational and so unprofessional she calls out her crush for sleeping with someone else, during office hours that I rank her up there with Ellis from Smash as one of this year’s most annoying television characters.
Idealism and self-righteousness
Admittedly there’s a fine line between idealism and self-righteousness and woefully disappointed American critics say series creator Aaron Sorkin has crossed it. The man behind the multiple-award-winning The West Wing, which ran on NBC from 1999 to 2006, has been accused of soapboxing, lecturing or pontificating. Episode 4 (“I’ll Try to Fix You”), for instance, seemed to portray how gossip is deplorable and cable news is noble. Through Will and his defiant intellectual superiority, the award-winning screenwriter and playwright gets to tell the world via arias of facts why and how broadcast journalism is in decline.
But why is it so wrong to fantasize about a news program that upholds high standards? And when did aspiring for excellence become a crime? As far as I’m concerned, the haters can suck it. The only thing I disliked about that episode was its use of a cheesy song by the cheesy band Coldplay.
I’m Sorkin-illiterate in that like most people of this generation, I’ve only seen The Social Network, which he wrote, and not his earlier work such as The West Wing, Sports Night or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip. In a way it’s better that I don’t have the baggage that comes with being a fan so I’m not aware of the lofty crests from which he has supposedly fallen. When I watch The Newsroom even though it tends to be all dialogue, no drama all I see is excellent television with charming individuals and an inspiring script. It’s not perfect, but it makes me think about why I do what I do. That’s all that counts.
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