the newsroom- study guide to episode 1
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Study guide for episode 1 of HBO's "The Newsroom" PACC JOURNALISM 2012TRANSCRIPT
EPISODE ONE-‐ STUDY GUIDE
THE NEWSROOM airs Sunday nights at 10pm on HBO CANADA
From the mind of Aaron Sorkin, creator of The West Wing and screenwriter of The Social Network and Moneyball comes The Newsroom, a behind-‐the-‐scenes look at the people who make a nightly cable-‐news program. Focusing on a network anchor (played by Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), the newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Olivia Munn, Dev Patel) and their boss (Sam Waterston), the series tracks their quixotic mission to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles-‐not to mention their own personal entanglements.
ABOUT THE SHOW
WHO’S WHO IN THE NEWSROOM
I watched The Newsroom a few nights ago. First, let me say, I was relieved to Mind the media not portrayed as a pack of wolves, ready to hunt down celebrities, exploit the wounded and chase gossip. Instead, the media were portrayed as a weak pup in the herd of democracy on the verge of death... in other words, a weak link in the chain of the American democratic system.I cover live and breaking news events on an ongoing basis, often without a script, including the BP oil spill in the Gulf. I thought The Newsroom was as close to reality as I have seen portrayed on television (which may not be saying much). We often get alerted to a big story from the wire services, and then decide what to do with the information.A couple of observations, out of order: I look around at Sorkin's newsroom and I think, what year is this? The newsroom seems very white and overwhelmingly male. I look about our CBC News Network newsroom and our Mloor is chock-‐a-‐block full of people with extremely diverse backgrounds. Does someone speak Spanish? Check. Translation for Mandarin? Check. French? You bet. Muslim, Jewish, Christian, atheist, woman, man... all of us live here in the CBC newsroom.
But in Sorkin's bland newsroom, we see mostly white men, one woman and a girl. The anchor comes out of his ofMice onto the Mloor and yells at the one guy of colour and calls him "Punjab." Really? Not funny, and a good indication of just how white this place is, and for a man that, underneath, is supposed to be whip smart, it's saying something quite the opposite.
Carole MacNeil from CBC News Now responds to the episode
We also endure a lot of preaching about the importance of journalism, in that Sorkin machine-‐gun style: "The U.S. is not the greatest country in the world..." Ratatatatatat! "Journalism is very important to democracy..." Ratatatatatat! Facts, Migures are rattled off in a speedy, yet monotone way that is impressive once but gets tired quickly, because there's no intimacy to the conversation.
So, in the end, what happened? The News Night program (did he take that name from the BBC's Newsnight program?) gets the story from reading it on the wire. (Yes, that is usually how it happens.) Someone's Spidey sense tingled — there was more to this explosion in the Gulf than just a search-‐and-‐rescue operation. They Migure it out, and they dedicate their whole hour to the explosion and the spill, having put together before anyone else that this will be the worst environmentally threatening accident the U.S. has ever seen. Great! Well done! Hmmm. What, I wonder, were they doing before? Not reading the wires? Not willing to throw out a show lineup in favour of going with breaking news? Were they the last ones to piece it together?
Sorkin's main target here seems to be lazy journalism, or at the very least, those who play it safe, like my Mictional counterpart, Will McAvoy. Sorkin seems to be saying, forget the celebrity culture in the media. The real enemy of democracy is sleepy journalism that takes what it is given without a second or deeper thought. I agree with that concept. So now we have a news anchor that went from being someone who was successful because he didn't "bother anyone" to an aggressive inquisitor who's in their face (like Jeremy Paxman, the BBC's News night perhaps?). But now that he's "Mixed" the newsroom, where will the plot take us next? Who will he turn his news hounds on to, now that they have their Mire back? Then we'll see where Sorkin is really going with his Newsroom. I'll check out the next episode for sure just to see.
Aaron Sorkin targets journalism in 'The Newsroom'Reuters | 04:01 AM,Jun 22,2012
By Christine Kearney NEW YORK (Reuters) -‐ U.S. television news has become as predictably sensational as reality shows, while journalism in general is failing democracy and its crucial role in intelligently informing the public. Thats the message behind a reimagining of what the news could and should be as shown in writer Aaron Sorkins idealistic new show, 'The Newsroom,' which premieres on cable channel HBO on Sunday. Just as Sorkins 'The West Wing' romanticized Washington politics, 'The Newsroom' Minds optimism in the very industry whose Mlaws it seeks to expose. It stars Jeff Daniels as a cynical, middle-‐aged TV anchorman who shoots for high ratings through pleasing stories before teaming up with his producer ex-‐girlfriend, played by Emily Mortimer. Together they shake up his nightly news show in an attempt at 'reclaiming the Fourth Estate. Reclaiming journalism as an honorable profession.' Mortimers character informs the young staff members in an early episode that: 'We dont do good television, we do the news,' while Daniels apologizes on air for recent wrongdoings including miscalculating election results, hyping up terror threats and failing to keep watch on the Minancial industry. Driving home what he sees as journalisms current failures, Sorkin uses real news events in his story lines to highlight failings of how events were actually covered. They include taking too long to recognize the huge environmental disaster of the 2010 BP oil spill and exaggerating the 2010 Times Square bomb threat. 'Everything is hyped up to such a loud volume, because they are not doing the news anymore, they are doing reality TV. And they badly want to get you involved with the ongoing story of Casey Anthony or the ongoing story of this person who was mean to that person,' Sorkin told Reuters in an interview. News shows, he added, 'have, in a lot of cases, all but abdicated their responsibility to a democracy to inform the electorate.'
JOURNALISTIC FAILINGS
The 51-‐year-‐old Emmy-‐ and Oscar-‐winning writer extends his criticism to journalism as a whole and how the quest for balance and objectivity has meant that, at times, media outlets have failed to point out the facts. They are, in the words of Will McAvoy, the anchorman played by Daniels, 'biased towards fairness.' McAvoy laments in one early
Aaron Sorkin discusses The Newsroomepisode that for example, if Republicans introduced a bill saying the earth was Mlat, newspapers would lead the story by saying that both major parties could not agree on the shape of the earth. 'It was that relevant, timely, smart attack to try to look at an industry that needs to tell the truth,' Daniels said in explaining why he took the role. 'He (Sorkin) opens up a mirror to a lot of different factions in this country.' In an opening monologue in the pilot episode that is an homage to 'Network,' the 1976 movie satire on the news business, McAvoy uncharacteristically explodes in a tirade against Americas lost standing in the world, and criticizes the polarization of American politics as well as cable TV news. 'You can speak to your base and you can spend some time on air ripping into it and you will make your base happy and they will keep buying the products of the people, of the companies who advertise with you. Its all money,' Daniels said. In Sorkins more ideal newsroom world, Mortimers character promises just 'the facts,' while Daniels McAvoy takes up his new crusade to point out what he sees as hypocrisies in Arizonas immigration law and the Tea Party movement, while taking a potshot at Sarah Palin and other conservative critics of the 'media elite.' Sorkin, who won an Oscar for writing the screenplay for 'The Social Network,' the story of Facebook, is often criticized by U.S. conservatives. He said he knows 'there are many on the right who will quickly jump to a conclusion that this will be a lot of Hollywood liberal hogwash. I hope they give the show a chance.' A bigger obstacle to the shows success may be that, according to some early reviews, it goes downhill after the pilot episode. 'If the storytelling were more conMident, it could take a breath and deliver drama, not just talking points,' observed The New Yorker. Sorkin said the characters, who include a chief executive played by Jane Fonda -‐ once married to CNN founder Ted Turner -‐ are not based on any real-‐life news Migures. 'This is an idealistic, romantic, very optimistic, look at television in general and the news in particular,' he said. 'I can only write the way I write. So, there is an authorial voice to these things.' (Reporting by Christine Kearney, Editing by Jill Serjeant and Eric Walsh)
Hear me now / Oh thou bleak and unbearable world, / Thou art base and debauched as can be; / And a knight with his banners all bravely unfurled / Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee!
A quote from the Broadway show Man of La Mancha (mentioned in the episode)
About Don Quixote
Don Quixote is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric novels, and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique Earthy wit. On his journey Quixote encounters the world as it is-‐-‐ not as he wishes it to be. In The Newsroom we meet characters who discover the world in the same way! A number of the characters have noble goals (as do most of us) but discover that life happens.
Discussion questions....
1. Find at least two moments from the show when we see the tension between “traditional” journalism and “new” journalism.
2. Think about Will’s speech from the beginning of the episode. How did it shape the rest of the episode?
3. What do we learn about MacKenzie at the end of the episode?
4. Is Will a nice man? Is he good at his job? Do you have to be both?
5. What did you learn about journalism from this episode?
6. How did the news team discover what was going on in the Gulf of Mexico?
7. Are sources ever mentioned in the episode?
8. Charlie seems to be quite pleased following the broadcast. Why?