The news continues to be a hot topic in the media. No surprise there, as our major papers, evening
newscasts, and social media sites are our primary information highways.
For many years, our news media has also been a popular topic
in entertainment media. There were
films, like the Front Page, His Girl Friday, Network and a personal favorite, Broadcast
News. In tv land, there has been The
Mary Tyler Moore Show, WKRP in Cincinnati, and Newsradio, among others.
This summer HBO has brought us Newsroom, the latest series
from the always earnest and popular writer/producer Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin’s list of successful scripts and
series is impressive. It’s long, it’s
consistent, and it’s across genres.
And that’s what’s so damn upsetting about Newsroom. This overwrought drama that is supposedly
about the presentation and delivery of cable news via the show 'Newsnight' is little more than a
hackneyed gabfest featuring lines better delivered by emeritus faculty at
second tier journalism schools holding positions far removed from daily news.
The show sure looks like a news program, with sets designed
like actual cable newsrooms (at least CNN’s TimeWarner Center in NYC),
characters who would fill production roles in actual newsrooms, and actors dressed
to look the parts of the managers, anchors, correspondents, and producers and
assistants who populate actual newsrooms.
But it’s little more than window dressing.
Working hard to avoid spoiler alerts, it’s impossible to
imagine an anchor with managing editor responsibilities have an executive
producer hired under him while away on vacation.
It’s hard to imagine the president of the news operation of
a major cable company spending the better part of his working day swimming in
booze, while pining for a time long gone, the time when reporters had 48 to 72
hours to write their story, while the film travelled overseas to New York to be
processed and cut.
It’s beyond belief to find an intern hiding behind her own
skirt in one episode, only to speak forcefully against superiors in the next
one, while covering up a deep secret that violated a cardinal ethics
tenet.
And sources don’t just pop up with information in real time
with little push or effort, and producers, as smart as we can be, don’t put
together the pieces of a complicated puzzle in such a way as to advance a story
several days ahead of story. (Just watch
the first episode if this requires clarification. The bullshit factor here was beyond belief,
even for entertainment television. )
I could go on. My
friend Dave Marash in CJR wisely noted that news is gathered by reporters and
producers and camerapeople out in the field.
http://www.cjr.org/behind_the_news/emmy_award-winning_tv_reporter.php What Newsnight shows what happens inside the
mothership, inside a corporate hq, not out in the field, where video is shot,
interviews are conducted, contacts are made, roadblocks are navigated, cameras get
broken, emotions strain, and computers fail.
So we’re getting talking mannequins, garrulous sounds from
characters who don’t have the time to debate the great questions they purport
to balance against the story they’re working on, simultaneously.
We’re getting office politics, some office sex (not on
camera, a surprise for HBO), and plenty of direct language about what their job
is supposed to be. Perhaps that’s why
Dan Rather liked the show so much. http://gawker.com/5920929/dan-rather-reviewed-the-newsroom-for-us-and-liked-it
For those folks interested in our newsgathering
capabilities, this show may hold interest.
For Aaron Sorkin fans, this show may be the appropriate follow on to the
idealist, and idealized, West Wing.
For those of us who have been there, and ‘there’ can be a
great number of places, but for those of us who have been there, Newsroom
falls far short of promise, fails the public by deceiving them into believing
this is all there is, yet will probably be successful enough to further burnish
Sorkin’s image as the chronicler of our major institutions.
Now, will he turn to a hospital drama after Newsroom runs
its course? That would be
something. Has that been done by anyone
in the television landscape? Imagine that, a hospital drama in prime
time. That’s something new and refreshing!
