I've never worked in a television newsroom. I have worked in a newsroom. The newsroom for a small town daily newspaper where we didn't measure our stories in minutes, but in column inches. We had to leave space for our advertisers because that's where the money came from. Subscriptions and street purchases wouldn't have been enough to pay for the paper our news was printed on.
The Newsroom is television. It covers real news stories that occurred far enough in the past that the writer knows what happened and when. But recently enough that most of us remember following the stories as they happened and were reported from real TV newsrooms.
The first season starts with the Deep Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and a Will McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels, who is a pompous ass news anchor concerned only with himself and his ratings. Luckily for him, though he doesn't appreciate it, his boss, Charlie Skinner, played admirably by Sam Waterston, hires a passionately idealistic new Executive Producer. British actress Emily Mortimer plays MacKenzie McHale, the new EP. She has a past with Will.
Will's redemption brings me to tears. The first season of this show is, if not the best, one of the best written and acted series I've ever seen. And I'm a died-in-the-wool Downton Abbey-Maggie Smith fan.
The second season runs through the Romney campaign while all hell is breaking loose in central Africa and Syria is gearing up to collapse in the tragedy the world is still dealing with today. This season deals more with romance. Okay, so the course of true love does not run smooth. There is humor. There is pathos. There is "Are you kidding me already?!" We get the private lives of the characters -- all the characters, the main characters, the supporting characters, the cleaning crew. (No, that's not true. We never find out who the cleaning crew sleeps with or wants to sleep with or used to sleep with.) I don't believe it lives up to the first season's promise.
But even with the second season being less-than, it is so far above standard television fare that I came back for the third season. And I'm glad I did. It is as good as the first.
The third and final season begins with the Boston Marathon bombing. This season deals with the downfall of the news organization -- battered on all sides by market forces, the competing interests of its owners and its news people, and ultimately the passage of time and life.
The Newsroom made me laugh out loud. And I cried because it was so touching and because it was so sad. That, for me, is the mark of good work.
Aaron Sorkin
Aaron Sorkin is the writer, the man who conceived of and wrote The Newsroom. He proves that Americans can write. I was beginning to think your middle name had to be Julian Fellowes and you had to be British to write and sustain quality TV material. Thank you Mr. Sorkin.
In this year of our country's history, this election cycle, this media frenzy, I cling to a life raft. A life raft of ideals lashed together with oft maligned ropes -- information, education, ethics.
The sad truth is Walter Cronkite doesn't live here any more.
We are facing a choice between two less than inspiring people, each of whom is roundly disliked by portions of our society. And for good reasons.
Me? I'm going to vote for the person I perceive to be the lesser of two evils, and I believe The United States of America is strong enough to survive the next four years.
America may not be the greatest nation in the world. I don't think there is a 'greatest nation in the world.' But I do believe 'It can be.'
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