The Newsroom

What kind of day has it been? This is a question pondered over at some point by each of Aaron Sorkin’s TV projects, and as Libby Hill’s article in Vulture details, it’s one with many different answers. In The West Wing it sets up and then knocks down it’s own questions rather efficiently in forty five minutes, before ending on one of TV’s best cliffhangers. And in The Newsroom, a show destined to be unduly forgotten to the annals of history, it’s a question that, like the Don Quixote comparisons littered throughout the show, is on a mission to civilise it’s characters for an audience fully aware that they aren’t going to see them again. I would love to be able to say I’ve seen it play out in Sports Night and Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, but alas, ABC and NBC have decided to make them impossible to watch outside the US. (And whilst on the subject, can a company please take over ownership of The West Wing from Channel 4 so it’s easier to watch than using their awful app/website, please?).

The Newsroom was a COVID find for me. Stuck during lockdowns and having already worked my way through the likes of The Thick of It and The Office again for the umpteenth time, I was desperate for something new, with an inherently optimistic outlook sewn into it’s fabric. So I watched The West Wing for the first time, and fell in love with everything that had to offer; well-rounded characters, long soliloquies about how we could aim and be better as people, walk & talks, and Sorkin’s unending zeal for trying to show the world how to be better. But when I was finished with that, it left me with a gaping hole for more. And then I found The Newsroom. Sat, buried away on Sky’s HBO offerings just begging for more people to stumble onto it. The image of Jeff Bridges, sat at the news desk with his back to the camera, looking almost as if he’s heard us arriving at the show and is ready to civilise, is as memorable as it is simple. The first go round, I completed the show in less than three days – which was a lot easier as there are only twenty-five episodes (both a blessing and a tragedy for this show). And since then it’s been one that I come back to religiously at least once a year. Why? Because it is decent! And it asks it’s viewers to be decent. Is it filled with what some might argue are Sorkin’s worst tendencies of regurgitating his own personal grievances? Sure. But does it deliberately set out to belittle and demean anyone for their opinions? No! On the contrary, it sets a Republican as the centre point of the show and garners a rallying call around them for marking a line in the sand at where the best points of that standing sit. One can clearly tell Sorkin doesn’t agree with the politics of his central character but he has a wonderful time exploring the differences in those viewpoints and fortifies the debates with well-crafted arguments that leave one hoping that actual political discourse would return to the same level of quality.

Compared to Sorkin’s run on The West Wing this show is much more ingrained in the day to day realities of political discourse. The former insulated itself by centring around a White House, being run by a Democratic government and so it’s debates with right wing politicians always take more of a tone of denouncing the Democrats as correct and the Republicans as wrong. But The Newsroom steps back from that. Sorkin deliberately sets his journalists in the real world, covering actual news stories that happened; from Deepwater Horizon and Bin Laden’s death, through to the Boston Marathon Bombing and the 2012 election. Sorkin deliberately steps back in time to those events and gives us a look at what news coverage should have looked like covering those events. He allows us to glimpse the a better world, where leaders and businesses are held accountable for their actions and presents reporters who are unafraid to call out the bigger issues with society, without having to worry about the reaction in ratings and advertiser spend. Sorkin transports us back to the earlier days of the news, consistently making comparison to the likes of Cronkite and Murrow, and presents the format for how all the big news corporations should be presenting themselves. He repeatedly revisits events from news cycles and gives us a look at what life in a better world would have looked like and teaches the right lessons to be learned form the we reacted to those events, or corrects where peoples apathy meant that those involved were hurt all the more. The most meaningful example coming from this clip in season two, episode three. This is the very heart of the show. Sorkin taking an actual disgraceful event and schooling the world on what the correct example should have looked like. Yes, the election was already done when this aired, and yes, there are new reports from the time condemning it. But Googling Steven Hill’s name brings this clip up third. This will live on longer than any of the actual news coverage will do.

And there are far more examples like this, from calling The Tea Party the “American Taliban” to demonstrating the proper way the shooting of Gabbie Giffords should have been handled, this show consistently inspires that there is a better way for the news to conduct itself. To not be driven by ratings, but instead to be the face of a people to power. To ask the questions of politicians, the powerful, the corrupt (and often all three) that we ordinary folk will never be able to. And to hold their feet to the fire when they deliberately obfuscate around answers that a “well informed electorate” should have in their arsenal when choosing which direction a country should take when voting. The mock debate at the end of season one offers us a glimpse of what we could actually expect when candidates are actually asked to account for their own statements and ideals, rather than just relying on party rhetoric and stump speeches. The Genoa storyline, whilst not the strongest piece of writing throughout the show, is still one that forgives journalists for mistakes in the past and demonstrates what the correct actions should be when properly reporting on these events. And the canonical impetus for the show, a viral interview question of Will McAvoy at a university panel (that itself has taken a whole new viral life in the real world on social media), is one that deliberately holds a mirror to America and asks it, why can’t it be better?

Saying all this though, its not a show that lives without flaws, it would be remarkable if it did. It’s central attempt at a Pam/Jim style romance with Maggie and (get this) Jim(!) is never fully earned, and the characters involved are always more interesting separated out from one another. At times it does find itself tripping up over its own feet to explain acronyms and definitions. And there are a lot of monologues. Like, a lot. Even for Sorkin standards there are a lot. But at their worst, they are informative. Daniels’ gets a four minute segment to extemporise around historical hypotheticals and it’s a better history lesson than many would ever get in a school these days. Jane Fonda’s Leona Lansing is consistently out-talking everyone around her and clearly having a lot of fun doing it (a baked diatribe around Daniel Craig is a true highlight). The flaws this show has are not in it’s standards, if anything, it’s flaws are from the structure it has to hold itself to. As a HBO show it suddenly finds itself with a much shorter running schedule than a ‘normal’ show would and so has to sit with a number of staples of the format; a central romance, a fight for good verses evil, and a well paid off ending for each season. But none of these ever mean that it sacrifices its writing quality or story choices for the benefit of fitting a mould. Love stories are diligently told with warmth that, apart from the aforementioned one, leave none of them feeling underserved or unearned. Side characters are never put in just for the sake of it and then forgotten about at the end of an episode, the core cast is unchanging throughout the run, with each of them being afforded depth and growth. And if nothing more can be said about it, it gave us Dev Patel and Olivia Munn early on in roles that let them excel in the spotlight.

At the centre of it all though is decency. The characters make mistakes but aren’t intentionally inflicting distress on their peers. They are remorseful when necessary and supportive in the face adversity. The show likes to make light of a brother/sister relationship between Will and Sloan but, it’s her dynamic with Charlie that is infinitely more interesting. It’s different again from her’s with Don and Will, its more nurturing and banter-ish. He pushes her and supports her throughout the show, and when he slips up and call’s her “girl” in an argument and she immediately pushes back, Sam Waterston’s face is amazing. In the brief instance of her rebuttal one can see the immediate regret and shame of the choice of wording. It’s a moment that then bonds them for the rest of the run of the series in a way that none of the other characters share. That one shared moment of regret will strive their desire to be decent to one another from there on in. These moments are the decency at the centre of the story and right up until the final frame, of the final episode, it is the lynchpin that pushes them forwards.

Saying that The Newsroom is incredible feels a little understated given all the above. There is talent and humour and pathos in every frame of this show. It never looks down on its audience and never lectures at them, and instead asks them to trust that it’s journey will strive to educate and civilise. And now, ten years since it was axed, there is now a gaping hole for this show to return. For Will McAvoy and the News Night team to take to pieces the hypocrisy of the last nine years and help us shine a light on where we should be aiming to go from here. In short, what kind of day has it been? A much worse one without this show.