Perhaps you’ve seen “The Newsroom.” Probably, you haven’t.
“The Newsroom,” on HBO, is closing out its less than stellar
run. It was the brainchild of Aaron Sorkin, the man who brought us “The West
Wing,” so hopes were high for his version of a television news operation.
With a decided lack of humility Sorkin decided that he would
show the world how the news should be reported. His fictional news channel, ACN
would tell it like it is. It would dispense with the fluff, the filler and the
bias.
As you know, the show has been a bomb. Aside from the
clever, crisp dialogue--often too crisp and too clever-- it has very little to distinguish itself. Worse yet, it
represents Aaron Sorkin telling everyone how to think.
Mixing art, such as it is, with propaganda is a formula for
failure.
In this year’s first episode “The Newsroom” takes on the
Boston marathon bombing. You recall it.
You probably also recall that some news organizations
released a picture and eventually the names of two suspects who turned out not
to have been involved at all.
The cautious and responsible folks at ACN did not fall for
the misinformation and thus spent part of the show patting themselves on their
backs.
Eventually, the ACN crew did name the two perpetrators, the
Tsarnaev brothers, and reported their fates.
So far, not so bad.
And yet, the show failed to mention why the brothers did
what they did. It did not even connect them with Islam or Islamist terrorism. It
did not even mention that they were Muslims.
Imagine doing a story about the Boston marathon bombing and not mentioning Islamic terrorism. You can't. Aaron Sorkin did.
Hint: when you are doing a fictionalized version of a news
show and claiming that it presents the news as it ought to be presented, you should not
censor what is arguably the most relevant information.
ACN can now have a new slogan: Unfair, unbalanced and
afraid.
Art and propaganda? Nobody since Leni Reifenstahl can do that.
ReplyDeleteI've never watched it. 1.--I don't watch HBO. 2.--I read it was propaganda.
Aaron wants the show to be his perfect vision. That lets most everyone else out.
The only thing I saw about The Newsroom pilot was a Youtube clip:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zqOYBabXmA
The point of the scene is to show the degeneracy of the media to partisan punditry and childish propaganda, saying what people want to hear, so the news anchor finally takes off his niceness filter and says what he really things is true.
So Stuart, I'll take your word that Sorkin failed to follow through to his high ideals of following the freedom to say important things no matter what people want to hear.
Oh, here's another:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGAvwSp86hY
So Sorkin triangulated his brave newscaster as a RINO (Republican in name only) calling out fundamentalism in politics.
Certainly propaganda, but some fair facts to consider also. But its only useful if you consider yourself one of the people he's calling out. Otherwise it just makes listeners feel smug that we're not one of those delusional people.
The truth I see is that politics is primarily about fear, so its great when you can make fun of the irrational fears of others, but less fun when faced by your own irrational fears.
I don't know, if everyone's irrationality is exposed, if that improves the possibility for compromise, or merely helps expand the pull for everyone to move into their own echo chambers.
Ideally the media would mediate, but the real inconvenient truth is that "newsrooms" are already obsolete, largely irrelevant and ignored.
If I was Sorkin, I'd end the series by having the Newsroom shut down for a lack of ratings, and replaced by "Sex scandal of the week" reports, with a 5 minute weather break.