And now for the news

The third and final season of the newsroom delivers drama, death and an “I do”.

the newsroom

Season 3 Tuesdays (from 20 January) M-Net Edge 20:00 “it’s citizen journalism, where the public report news via social media, versus traditional and professional journalism where journalists use trusted sources before they report on a story.”

aaron believes that there is danger in using social media, like twitter, for sourcing news stories. “to me it’s not communication,” aaron explains about twitter. “only people shouting quips into the air. i can’t think of anything worth saying in 140 characters.”

it’s

the real news

one of the reasons for the newsroom’s huge success is that it combines dramatic storylines with life hard news events that have actually taken place. and this season is no different. “if there’s a dramatic value to the way a story’s reported or if it can serve as the basis for a conflict of ideas, or if we can put one or more of our characters into the story without disturbing what happened, then it has a chance of showing up on the show,” aaron adds.

the latter is very much in play from episode 1 with a whistleblower storyline, reminiscent of snowden, who released classified documents from the us government to the media in 2013. these worlds collide when neal sampat (dev patel) is sent over 27 000 highly classified government documents. the government isn’t happy, neal’s forced by will to go on the run, and will is then subpoenaed to

real-

edward

appear in court – and if will doesn’t reveal the source, he might face jail time…

i do & i die

the unfolding whistleblower story brings one silver lining of happiness when will and mac (emily mortimer) finally marry. “i knew going into this season they have to marry,” says in the 10 february episode, the clock is ticking for will (sorry, we don’t want to say why, but it’s going to be hectic), so mac whips up a wedding ceremony. in less than three hours, the whole shebang is organised and the couple say “i do” and share a kiss.

but not all the stories this season have a happy ending. in the 17 february episode, someone meets their maker. we’re not spoiling it but if you can’t wait, unscramble the highlighted red letters on this page to come up with the name of the character who won’t see out the series finale.

aaron.

in a nutshell

season 3 is short – it’s only six episodes. the shortened final season was due to aaron’s hectic work schedule as he writes all the episodes himself. “as it turned out, six was the right number. i don’t know what we would have done with a seventh episode.” despite being so short, aaron’s excited about season 3 and says that “i think we’re wrapping up a lot of stories in a nice way”.