Hindsight Is 20-20

In the first and most famous scene of HBO’s show The Newsroom, the protagonist is asked a softball question during a panel discussion at a college. Will McAvoy, a celebrity evening news anchor, is supposed to explain “why America is the greatest country in the world.” He first tries to dodge the question, but when the panel moderator refuses to accept his flippant non-answer, he launches into a monologue inspired by a sign he sees someone in the crowd holding up.

“It’s not,” he begins, then reels off a cogent and expletive-laced critique of American exceptionalism. “We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in labor force and number 4 in exports,” he says, then returns to the initial question with a sardonic “we lead the world in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined, 25 of whom are allies.”

It’s exciting, and riveting, and deeply satisfying. For those of us who spend our time in the shower crafting well thought out rebuttals and clever barbs, McAvoy’s off-the-cuff ability to surgically annihilate a question he finds offensive while also making a strong case for his own worldview is barely short of pornographic. This is one man who will absolutely not be haunted by l'esprit d'escalier, and his success gives us a vicarious thrill.

The only problem is that his speech isn’t actually off-the-cuff. He is, of course, a fictional character, and all his dialogue has been scripted ahead of time. Unlike the rest of us stuck out here in reality, Will McAvoy has the immense fortune of having acclaimed writer Aaron Sorkin behind him, making sure that he never misses a beat, fumbles an opportunity to look smart, or neglects to pull up the perfect statistic to back up his point.

That’s what makes The Newsroom so ridiculous and so much fun. The entire conceit of the show is that a team of fictional journalists take on real world news, from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the assassination of Osama Bin Laden. Because these events have all already taken place, the show’s writers are able to give the characters almost supernatural prescience, making sure they always get things right. It’s less “ripped from the headlines” and more “repairing the headlines.”

In a world where the media is often confusing, frustrating, and even complicit in some of the worst aspects of our politics and culture, it’s a pleasant fantasy to envision one potential alternative. After years of seeing certain news outlets contribute to the radicalization of Americans and the spread of misinformation while other news outlets refuse to address the issue in the name of “balance,” it feels really good to see a near-utopian vision of journalism as it could be. Shifting from a social media feed full of “doomscrolling” headlines to watch as celebrity journalists wield their power to force politicians into genuine debate, hold big business accountable, and refuse to devote air time to exploitative nonsense makes for excellent Friday night fun.

I said before that the opening scene is a sort of rhetorical pornography, and many critics have referred to the show as “masturbatory,” which is completely fair. It’s a wish fulfillment fantasy for people like me, who binge political podcasts and fact check Facebook posts. But there’s nothing wrong with masturbation - in fact, it’s super fun and feels really good! And that’s why I count the show among my “guilty pleasures.” Despite its attempts to function as a prestige drama one could take pride in watching, it never actually succeeds.

In fact, The Newsroom has a lot of problems. It treats its female characters horrendously, telling us how brilliant and talented they supposedly are while actually writing them as emotionally childish and intellectually clumsy. The non-news related plots are often incredibly overwrought and rely on absurd coincidences. And the character names are bafflingly distracting - one character is named Gary Cooper for no reason other than to give various characters the opportunity to comment on it, one character is named MacKenzie "Mac" McHale while her counterpart goes by McAvoy, and another character is called “Jim Harper” in what seems like a nod to his physical and narrative resemblance to Jim Halpert from The Office. Do the writers know that they can call the characters anything they want, and can thus prevent themselves from wasting time establishing that there is another Gary Cooper or having people comment about the sheer number of “Mc” sounds bouncing around?

So I’ll admit - The Newsroom is not an example of television writing at its finest. Not everything has to be! If I’m in the mood for genius storytelling or nuanced characters, I’ll definitely head somewhere else. But when I’m looking for a guilty pleasure to soothe my aggravation about the current state of our national discourse, it’s perfect. When I want to see people making the news program I wish we had, or when I need an inspirational example of how certain thorny problems might be solved if we could just get it a bit more right, I’m happy to join Will, MacKenzie, Jim, Maggie, and Sloan in The Newsroom.