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The Newsroom
This is another great show by Aaron Sorkin. I don’t often follow writers or creators from one show to another but Sorkin is one of kind. His style of writing is obvious and you can feel his hand of creation in any project he is involved with.
The trademarks that I have come to love are characterised by pithy and often rabid fire dialogue. His shows are filled with intelligent, three dimensional characters. Characters that you can go on a journey with. The other key aspect to his work that I love is his desire to tackle big issues.
I fell in love with Sorkin’s work when I found The West Wing. I had never seen anything like it. The issues were huge, the characters witty and passionate. But it was the dialogue that really did it for me. It was fast and thoughtful and delivered by some of the best actors at the top of their game.
From the White House to the Newsroom
He has been busy since the end of Jed Bartlett’s second term. What really stood out for me as the difference in The Newsroom was how flawed the characters were.
The dialogue was the same polished brilliance. But now, instead of being delivered by the white house’s head of communication and the President they are brought to us by the writer of a blog and the recently promoted executive assistant. The brilliance of the writing here is that Sorkin and his team are able to show how these different characters talk
But it isn’t just how they talk it’s what they say. They make mistakes and say the wrong thing, all in the script, and it’s brilliant. Because of these flaws the characters feel real. Because of the mistakes they make their newsroom feels real.
From Ratings to News
The show follows a jaded news anchor and his staff as they move from a space where they are chasing the ratings to delivering the news. The performances by all the leads is brilliant. Emily Mortimer is a standout as Mackenzie McHale, the passionate executive producer who leads the charge for change
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In fact all the main roles are noteworthy. Dev Patel is a favourite as Neale Sampat, blogger for the news anchor; Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy the anchor; and Sam Waterson as Charlie Skinner.
Another aspect of this show that is just so good is how the creators weave all of the characters into the story in some way. There are hardly any bit parts. My favourite character by far was Sloan Sabbith played by Olivia Munn. Munn plays an incredibly intelligent finance analyst that co-anchors with Will on occasion. Her bluntness and complete lack of street smarts in some situations was laugh-out-loud funny.
The Machine at Work
The show moved from big, real world topics, to imagined ones created for the show. It was fantastic to get a fly-on-the-wall view of how a newsroom operates, especially during a tumultuous time.
There is a fantastic story arc that deals with a news item to do with war crimes committed by American soldiers. It walks us through some important steps that are taken to vet sources and verify information. The most interesting aspect of this for me was the concept of a red team.
The idea of a red team is that you keep a group of people in the news organisation in the dark on a story. They are brought in, towards the time of publishing, and they try to rip the story to pieces. I had never heard of this before and it was awesome to see it in action.
It was sad to see the show finish after only three seasons but I feel that it may have said all that Sorkin and his team wanted to say.
