The Newsroom....whaddya think?- Page 6

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/17/12 at 9:16pm

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: McAvoy story update

Sent: May 28, 2011 22:00

Hey, man —

I’ve been here for two days, and you should see what a sack of self-reverential nutjobs work at this place. At a pitch meeting, they actually compared the war on drugs to their own crusade against fluff news. Failures all around.

Anyway, this is going to be a great story if I can get anybody on the record. McAvoy is forcing me to shadow him for a bit before he decides whether we get the story. Until then, everything is off the record. But he’s blatantly admitted his agenda in having us come in (which sort of defeats the purpose of having an agenda, if you ask me). He wants somebody to expose Leona Lansing’s crusade against him, and he wants me to be the guy who does it because — well, I can’t tell you. Even though it’s journalistic malpractice to report on somebody … well, somebody I used to know … Will says I should go ahead and do it anyway. He says a partial disclosure of my, uh, friendship with his EP in the second graf should be fine. You okay with that?

He told me this while smoking cigarettes in his office, which is plainly illegal. Staffers tell me he’s much more fun when he’s illegally smoking pot. I asked him about it, and he muttered something about Don Quixote playing softball.

Originally, I pitched you a story about how McAvoy was becoming the last bastion of news and truth on cable news. But now the story seems to be that McAvoy is reverting. Half of his audience stopped watching when he didn’t cover the Casey Anthony trial, which seems hard to believe since they’ve all grown accustomed to News Night’s hard-news agenda. But apparently logic is defied a lot around here.

McAvoy’s running scared, is what I’m saying, which he admitted to me (again, off the record). Lansing is trying to run him out of ACN, and the ratings drop is all the cover she needs. Did I mention that already? Sorry. Was worried you might have forgotten. Aaron Sorkin once told me that it’s best to repeat story lines several times. “Never trust your audience when you can demean them,” was his quote, I think. Come to think of it, he told me that a few times the night I met him.

So, McAvoy’s caving. (He said it was because he had to or he couldn’t moderate — and, of course, thus revolutionize — presidential debates. (Shame, I was hoping Terry Smith would get to be the moderator. Love his Capitol Report show.) But McAvoy’s EP, MacKenzie (the one who’s going to star in our totally full disclosure), has apparently brainwashed the staff. They’ve been so busy making hard news, they’ve forgotten how to make compelling news. A former staffer who is somehow even more condescending than McAvoy came in to give them a crash course in how Nancy Grace does it.

The guy — he was sort of separate from the main group, so I didn’t catch his name; Juan, maybe? — is one of those sneering sexists who doesn’t quite realize it. He singled out the women for being stooges in Nancy Grace’s plan to corrupt American minds. “No one's ever gone broke in America serving up a woman who makes other women feel superior.” And what was weirder — the women totally bought it!

The sexism angle has to make it into my piece somehow. It’s like all the women here are reinforcing their own negative portrayals. I’ve never seen anything like it. At one point, McAvoy’s blogger, Neal, was talking to ACN's star economic correspondent, Sloan Sabbith. When Neal, pretending to be an Internet troll, told her she “screwed her way to the top and has a big ass,” Sloan overreacted despite Neal making it clear that he was tossing out a hypothetical. She assaulted Neal and demanded, “Do I?” She was talking about her butt. The far more offensive, damning allegation went totally unmentioned. It’s like they’re starring in a workplace drama from the sixties.

Anyway, the crash course worked — the Casey Anthony coverage brought 150,000 people back. Wouldn’t Will’s regular viewers turn off the TV at the first sight of Baby Caylee, you ask? Me too. Nobody around here seems to have even thought of the question.

What else, what else? Oh! I followed ACN's news president to the New York Public Library. (Sneaky, I know.) He was awesomely reverential as he walked through its halls, and a triumphant string section started playing somewhere in the building at just the right time. It was a very triumphant walk. He met with a source, but I couldn’t catch what they were saying. I do know that he asked a staffer to vet him — even though all the source asked was that News Night highlight the source’s old congressional testimony. But the news executive is treating it like they have an exclusive or something. Weird news judgment in this place.

Office gossip seems atypically light, at least while I was there. Sources tell me there’s a lot of tension between an associate producer, senior producer, and that Juan guy, but I didn’t catch much. There was that time when the senior producer felt emasculated because the associate was calling him "she," but I just chalked that up to the antiquated gender norms in the air.

Still working on the Will-MacKenzie love story angle. It seems to only move forward when there’s a third party involved. Maybe my being here will help it along.

Oh, one more thing: The power went out right as the News Night team was further sullying their immaculate values and doing a hit on Anthony Weiner. Came right as MacKenzie was praying to God, too. Very convenient (that kind of thing tends to happen a lot around here). I did some Googling, and it doesn’t look like anywhere else in New York had a power outage. Would be totally bizarre if only ACN's office went down. Almost as bizarre as how it was 98 degrees in the block around ACN, but 82 degrees everywhere else. That must be why the power went out.

Emptying my notebook:
Right before the blackout happened, I spotted a former colleague of mine from an old mag called Parks and Recreation. Was funny to see her here, especially because I hear another old colleague is dating News Night’s blogger.
Caught a glimpse of Leona Lansing leaving the building. She was regal and elegant, and seemed like the only person at ACN who wasn’t an emotional mess. Seems to me like she’s deserving of her own story. Maybe a follow-up after we’re done with this piece?
You wouldn’t believe how many times people yell at each other in full sight here. (Sloan and MacKenzie were arguing about the debt ceiling.) It’s like nobody has an office. My sources tell me there have been at least a half-dozen of these eruptions in the bullpen in the last year. Makes it very hard to work, they say.
Everybody drops a lot of names and references around here. The ones I caught: Camelot, Don Quixote, Jerry Springer, David Frum, Mark McKinnon, Alan Simpson, Steve Schmidt, Andrew Sullivan, J. Edgar Hoover, Broadway Danny Rose, Sarah Lawrence college, Dan Rather getting pushed out of CBS, and Taylor Swift. (Couldn’t really catch what was said at the NYPL, so I probably missed some, the way these people talk.)
Vulture

[Jon]

Posted: 8/19/12 at 7:48am

Sorkin fans (and Sorkin haters) will enjoy this video montage:
Sorkinisms

[henrikegerman]

Posted: 8/19/12 at 10:30am

At first episode viewing, I thought it was too full of its own cleverness. But it has slowly grown on me. Big time. And among a uniformly brilliant cast, Mortimer is outrageously good.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 7:15pm

I've vowed to at least see out the season, so I'm thankful there's only one more week left.

[wonkit]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 7:54pm

With the exception of one or two episodes, this has been a major disappointment. Turned it off half way through last night - the characters seem like little cartoons. And I don;t care about any of them. So - so long.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 9:49pm

It's very terrible but sometimes it makes me LAUGH. Like when it turned out Maggie's roommate went to high school with Casey Anthony.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 9:58pm

^Since the first episode they seem to have contacts and special sources in every conceivable story...I guess they're just lucky.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 9:59pm

ACN must be enchanted!

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 10:06pm

One more little niggle - why couldn't they have just let Mackenzie be British? Or have Emily Mortimer do an American accent? The back-story about her ambassador Dad is a bit silly.

I don't really give an eff about her accent, you don't have to explain it. It reminds me a bit of Sean Connery movies, where more often than not there is always some vague reference to Scotland.

Edit - I'm a few eps behind, so maybe there is a reason, who knows. In any case, I'm likely the only person it bothers. But that's what this thread is for, right?

Updated On: 8/20/12 at 10:06 PM

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 10:07pm

Remember Sutton Wall? The gay black professor Will "bullied" because he worked for and still supports anti-gay Santorum?


He's based on a real person

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/20/12 at 10:10pm

Yeah, I'd thought about that before.

EVERYTHING about this show is a bit silly.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/26/12 at 6:32pm

The Newsroom Frustration Almanac

My three favorites:

C: Conveniently knowing everyone
Jim's sister and his college friend just happen to be connected to the BP oil spill! Maggie just happens to know a staffer for Jan Brewer! Neal just happens to have been on one of the trains on 7/7! His girlfriend's dad just happens to have been killed on 9/11! Lisa just happens to have gone to high school with Casey Anthony! So many fortunate coincidences.

K: Koch Brothers
Another occasional issue with The Newsroom using actual news stories is that the show erases some of the real work done by real journalists. Isn't it great that Will knows all about how the Koch brothers fund the Tea Party? Thank an actual journalist.

W: Sam Waterston
Especially his angry outbursts. A lot of people love this performance, but it’s awfully heavy on the crazy eyes and weird cadences.
The Newsroom Frustration Almanac: From A to Z

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 8/26/12 at 8:59pm

Ha.

I agree with all except Sam Waterston, only because I love him so. It's good to see him break away from L&O purgatory - I don't care how crazy he gets.

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 9:55am

I thought it was a great season-ender. Not as mind-blowing as True Blood's, but still solid.

Although I would hate having Maggie as a friend. Lisa dated Jim for two months before Maggie told her something she knew the first night?

I always thought Don and Sloan could be a cute couple after him lifting her chin to cheer her up. Glad to see Sloan agrees.

Enjoyed how they came full circle, with Mac showing him her signs and the college student applying for an internship (although I can also understand why some people may think that's trying-too-hard)

[romantico]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 10:36am

I loved the finale. I loved the fact that it was not a cliffhanger or that they did not end on high drama. I'm sure this was due to the fact that they were not sure they would get a second season when they filmed it but still.

Of course, IMO the best scene last night was this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pzqq9sxKkY

[Wynbish]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 10:38am

I may have said "Boom!" often during that scene. I have no shame.

I loved the meeting they had with Reese and Leona, tricking them with the recipe. Sam's performance in that scene was very similar to his Law and Order days.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 11:49am

So wonderful that Aaron Sorkin is speaking for all the single ladies in New York on SATC. How bold and brave to be critical of a show that ended 7 years ago.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 1:40pm

It might have ended 7 years ago but I dint think a day has gone by since then that I haven't seen a group of girls acting like those 4 women, strutting down the street side by side blocking sidewalk traffic.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 1:47pm

It wasn't just that but the moment it came up it seemed so telegraphed to be a rant later on added with the implausibility of a night time tour bus and Jim being on that very bus after Maggie does the rant.

[DAME]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 1:58pm

For me.. the whole thing came out dated and cliche. I hope the new writers being brought into the show are able to fulfill its potential. I thought the last episode was the worst. The love story plots in the show don't work Not one of them.

[javero]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 11:08pm

"For me.. the whole thing came out dated and cliche."

Ditto.

More than a few of the S1 episodes came off as cheap knock-offs of the Mary Tyler Moore series. Overall, it suffers a bit of an identity crisis.

On one hand, it desperately wants to be a drama setting up Jeff Daniels for some of the best monologues on American tv currently. His character Will says what most of us over 40 mutter to anyone within earshot. While on the other hand, the lead female characters are all so ditzy or bratty that it's a challenge for me as a viewer to take any of them seriously except Olivia Munn as Sloan.

And I hope that the writers pull the plug on the Lisa-Jim-Maggie farce of a love triangle asap. It's been done to death already. Some of the scenes involving that trio look like they're straight out of a bad ABC Afterschool Special from the 70s starring Kristi McNichol.

A Don-Sloan pairing is so much more credible and the actors who bring the characters to life have excellent on-screen chemistry. Of course, two more seasons must past before they'll become an item.

Like the work of Daniels, Waterston, Tom Sadoski, Jane Fonda, Olivia Munn, and Dev Patel (on occasion). Emily Mortimer deserves better material and the youngsters on board (including Dev) need to tone down the shtick.

Updated On: 8/27/12 at 11:08 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 11:20pm

I agree with pretty much everything javero said, except about Waterston. I know that mine is a dissenting opinion, but I just think he's so ridiculous on this. And that's saying a lot, because it's there's a whole lot of ridiculous about this show.

The Jim Maggie Lisa Don saga is just gross and stupid. I just have no investment in any of it, especially because Maggie is seems to be mildly retarded, Jim is cute enough but he's just so.... bland. And I think even though the show is trying portray her so that I'll feel otherwise, Lisa is the only one worth caring about, and she's not even in the those awkward and embarrassing opening credits.

I think now that the season is over, I'm out. I'm not gonna be able to take another season of the "Republican" News Host saying all the things liberal news hosts and others were all saying. And the Daily Show.

It's just so.... cynically earnest all the time. And the women all suck. The men are awful, too, but god, these women.

Plus this show made me hate Chris Messina. And that's just not cool.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 11:29pm

I pray that for next season they find a way to get Jane Fonda in every episode. Getting to see her every week is like opening up a blue Tiffany's box each Sunday night.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 11:32pm

(Re)watch season four of Damages to get your Messina groove back, Phyllis.

I'm gonna stick with The Newsroom - even though I agree with all the bad stuff said about it, it adds up to more than the sum of it's parts. It's compulsively, maddeningly enjoyable in a Brothers and Sisters kinda way.

Plus anything with Jane Fonda is unmissable to me, anyway.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 8/27/12 at 11:38pm

I liked Jane, too.

even though I agree with all the bad stuff said about it, it adds up to more than the sum of it's parts. It's compulsively, maddeningly enjoyable in a Brothers and Sisters kinda way.

This made me laugh, because I used to hate-watch Brothers and Sisters, too!