The Newsroom

[IdolEyes787]

All this talk of racism leads to the question, "Can one species be racist towards another?"
Can a dog truly be racist, can a rose?

Surely, you see where this is going.

I can only speak for myself but hopefully someplace really racist.

[mjmacky]

"Can one species be racist towards another?"
Can a dog truly be racist, can a rose?

Of course, why else would they start wars?

[clocker]

You'd think I'd remember a great canine/flower battle.
I on the other hand, am not the least surprised.

[mjmacky]

I actually meant the in-fighting. You know, how like some roses go to war other roses due to a gap in discontent over other species. Stuff like that, I think it's like reductive history or something.

Moving on, I finally found myself investing some time into this series. I'm instantly in love with it. I was grabbing a sense that they weren't paying enough attention to the interpersonal relationships between the character from what I remember reading here, but I found the opposite to be true. They may not have progressed them very far, but I think I'd be disappointed if they did by ep 2.

[clocker]

After this last episode I'm afraid The Newsroom is beginning to lose me.

One of the criticisms leveled by advance previewers was that by setting the show in 2010, Sorkin had the advantage of hindsight and it was easy to be properly aghast at events that were more muddled in real time. The takeover of the GOP by the "grassroots" Tea Party is just such low hanging fruit, much simpler to spot today than 2-3 years ago as the Tea Party was just coalescing.
I'd like to see them try to be so incisive and correct about scenarios happening in real time. If the news is really about educating voters (something the characters have asserted a couple of times already), then why not own your bully pulpit and educate with current events?

They completely squandered Jane Fonda last night. She was a mere silhouette for the first half of the show and then was used to set up a crumby Jesus/Moses joke in the second half.
The scenes with Fonda and Waterston should have been electric, instead he continues with the loopy Yoda and she tries for "tough broad" (a take that either Christine Baranski or Maggie Smith could have nailed while sleeping).

I've started watching The Good Wife and think it's more enjoyable and less strident.

[mjmacky]

One of the criticisms leveled by advance previewers was that by setting the show in 2010, Sorkin had the advantage of hindsight and it was easy to be properly aghast at events that were more muddled in real time. The takeover of the GOP by the "grassroots" Tea Party is just such low hanging fruit, much simpler to spot today than 2-3 years ago as the Tea Party was just coalescing.
I'd like to see them try to be so incisive and correct about scenarios happening in real time. If the news is really about educating voters (something the characters have asserted a couple of times already), then why not own your bully pulpit and educate with current events?

I don't know, that all seemed obvious to me at the time but the sensationalism was too wildly embraced for most to realize what was actually happening. If one is trying to make a point, wouldn't it be more effective to use a recent history where memory of the self and clairvoyance can both come into play?

[IdolEyes787]

After this last episode I'm afraid The Newsroom is beginning to lose me.

One of the criticisms leveled by advance previewers was that by setting the show in 2010, Sorkin had the advantage of hindsight and it was easy to be properly aghast at events that were more muddled in real time. The takeover of the GOP by the "grassroots" Tea Party is just such low hanging fruit, much simpler to spot today than 2-3 years ago as the Tea Party was just coalescing.
I'd like to see them try to be so incisive and correct about scenarios happening in real time. If the news is really about educating voters (something the characters have asserted a couple of times already), then why not own your bully pulpit and educate with current events?

They completely squandered Jane Fonda last night. She was a mere silhouette for the first half of the show and then was used to set up a crumby Jesus/Moses joke in the second half.
The scenes with Fonda and Waterston should have been electric, instead he continues with the loopy Yoda and she tries for "tough broad" (a take that either Christine Baranski or Maggie Smith could have nailed while sleeping).

I've started watching The Good Wife and think it's more enjoyable and less strident.

I have to agree. That last episode just came off as Sorkin showing his agenda and being "historical" having very little real point.

[mjmacky]

I'm having a hard time imaging the 3rd episode was all that different than the first 2. I'll come back and tell you all why you're wrong when I watch it.

[clocker]

It's not practicing what it preaches, that's The Newsroom's problem.
A fleeting reference to Michelle Bachmann -referred to as merely "a hairdo"- proves the point.
No one disputes that she's a self-aggrandizing waste of carbon but the obvious (and more important) next question is not asked, namely, how does she continue to retain office?
Who is voting for this shameful excuse for representation and what does that say about her constituency?

All of the idiot blowhards we've seen in the past year of the Republican runoffs- remember Herman Cain and Rick Perry?- are still around and still popular...who supports these people?

Just pointing and laughing, which is all that The Newsroom has done so far, is too easy and has already been done.
Let's see Sorkin get all Biblical on more worthy opponents like Norquist or Rove, two people smart enough to realize that getting elected is actually an impediment to controlling the masses.

[mjmacky]

The mention of Norquist was much less fleeting than the passing of the Bachmann reference. So that kind of seems a bit contradictory. As for everything else, isn't it still a little early to conclude the direction the show is taking?

It's not like every news media outlet had succumbed to the sensationalized nature that has swept that industry, just all of the major ones run by profit motive corporations. They are just now introducing the crux of the problem with the Koch brothers thing. The question to address is, how to continue the type of programming they want to achieve when the overlord isn't on board? News media had to have gone through these same predicaments and went with the poorer decision (e.g. Iraq pre war coverage relaxation in exchange for easing of FCC regulation). Major news is still brought to us by media conglomerates that answer to shareholders, I'd like to see how they address their stance on the show before I write it off. If Fonda just simply subscribes to the ideal, then I would find myself disenfranchised since I'm looking for something a bit more realistic.