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New season of 'The Newsroom' should introduce more gray areas to series universe

The hit show, "THe Newsroom," plays weekly on HBO. after one year of broadcast, it has become a hit series for many news-junkies and TV fans alike. Photo courtesy of HBO.
The hit show, "THe Newsroom," plays weekly on HBO. after one year of broadcast, it has become a hit series for many news-junkies and TV fans alike. Photo courtesy of HBO.

The hit show, "THe Newsroom," plays weekly on HBO. after one year of broadcast, it has become a hit series for many news-junkies and TV fans alike. Photo courtesy of HBO. The hit show, "The Newsroom," plays weekly on HBO. after one year of broadcast, it has become a hit series for many news-junkies and TV fans alike. Photo courtesy of HBO.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This week marks the one-year anniversary of the series premiere of the cable drama, “The Newsroom.” Despite a renewal by HBO, the show attracted many middling to scathing reviews by critics.

As it premiered, critics noted many of the usual Sorkin tropes, such as his spirited crackerjack dialogue, sharp (usually liberal) intellectuals and long uninterrupted takes, known by his fans as “walk and talks,” which mixes both of these elements.

Yet, the critics singled out a more fervent, elevated intensity to these usual elements with which they took issue.

Throughout much of the first season, many of the Newsroom’s characters deliver keynote speeches decrying the state of mass media, or to quote Time Magazine critic James Poniewozik, “…articulate characters are Sorkin’s gig. But on The Newsroom, people simply open their mouths and perfectly formed op-eds fall out.”

None are no more potent than the series first monologue, a typical Sorkinian tirade unleashed by veteran cable news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) at a college Q&A; that eviscerates the touted concept of American Exceptionalism.

While Sorkin’s speech nostalgically mourns a time in the U.S. that never existed, it nevertheless accomplishes venting against a mediocre age.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with his speeches, including a potent one against the American Tea Party and their demarcation of Republicans In Name Only, but the series aim for cathartic revelation in its boisterous swipes against modern day conservatives, while spacing on four years of stinging editorials by Jon Stewart and Bill Maher.

A lack of acknowledgement of the real world media landscape that the show tells narratives in is always an obvious weakness.

Instead, whenever McAvoy hosts his newscast, the music swells and the control-room stops dead in its place as the utterance of his genius broadcasts before them.

In their presentation, the words pretend to shape the debate, which contradict their real life outcomes, an always-present weakness of the show.

The moments where the debut season excels are when it deals with the widespread implications of reporting, from the simple act of ethics and other discussions of newsgathering, to how broadcasters comfort in national tragedy.

Despite this, these moments arrive only sporadically, while completely brush aside potentially interesting ethical discussions of the impact and virtues of delivering information to a fragmented, partisan audience and the obvious question of how does one report when it’s hard to pinpoint the whole truth.

Another implicit question within this final point is how to achieve accuracy, especially in light of the abundance of erroneous information regarding the Boston Bombing.

The fictional Atlantis Cable News staff doesn’t really grapple with this doubt of potential libel; they usually exhibit perfect 20/20 vision when the chips are down.

The first season featured plenty of interpersonal conflict, yet almost none where strong personalities and opposing ideologies collide with these questions.

Some of Sorkin’s finest moments as a wordsmith arrive when he portrays characters grappling with dilemmas, none finer than one of many lauded moments in “The West Wing” when fictional President Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen) verbally curses out God inside the National Cathedral after a personal affliction is revealed and his long-term secretary is killed in a car accident.

All evidence points to Sorkin incorporating at least some of these Herculean challenges regarding media, he titled the first season finale "The Greater Fool," and also hired conservative media consultants for the upcoming season.

This is only one step of fixing a manageable problem, and if the drama drops the infallibility and tones down the rhetoric, many of the wayside problems, including several problematic romantic subplots, should slowly mend themselves.

If the writer accomplishes these problems, then "The Newsroom" can construct a sympathetic tale of gathering news in the modern age, not unlike how Sorkin's own "The West Wing" created political optimism in the face of meh.

 

Reach the reporter at tccoste1@asu.edu

Correction: A previous version of this story misspelled the name of fictional news organization Atlantis Cable News. The article has since been fixed.


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