On the 8 o’clock news
Catching up on current affairs is all the better when you see what goes on behind the scenes in The Newsroom.
Jeff Daniels is brilliant as political news anchor Will McAvoy in drama series The Newsroom (2012-2014, stream all three seasons on Showmax). It’s a horribly underrated series that a lot of news networks slammed, going so far as to call it [series creator] Aaron Sorkin’s lowest moment in television history. But that’s wrong and we’ll tell you why… after this short break.
THEM’S FIGHTIN’ WORDS
There are many stand-out moments, but the best definitely is people-pleasing Will’s speech in episode 1 when he is asked as part of a panel discussion to explain what makes the US the greatest country in the world. What follows is a 2:30-minute rant about what’s wrong with the US, which Jeff committed to memory for filming. He’d been “waiting for decades” to deliver a speech like that onscreen, says the actor. “I’d seen people give speeches where I’d sat listening intently,” he says and couldn’t believe that someone like Aaron, who also wrote legal drama West Wing (1999-2006), would trust him with a speech “in that articulate Sorkin rant”. He had to make sure the words were at the tip of his tongue. “You can’t just float in sort- of knowing it.” If that didn’t make Jeff nervous, Aaron added to the pressure, telling him that “as important as this is for you, it’s twice as important for me.”
It’s not just the acting that makes the show stand out. It’s how the characters articulate themselves and fit together like puzzle pieces. Whether it’s social media manager Neal Sampat (Dev Patel) on fictional news show News Night, executive producer MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) or chief economist Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn), they are flawless. Each statement is followed by a complete, intelligent comeback. There’s no joking when it comes to Aaron, adds Jeff. “The man is serious about what he does. That’s why he isn’t involved in joking-around shows. Everything is serious and perfect and flawless. His work draws you into your character more than you realise. He’s there every step of the way in filming. Aaron knows his characters better than we do.”
MAKING THE NEWS
The Newsroom is fictional, but it is rooted in real-life news stories, from Hurricane Katrina (2005) to the Boston Marathon terrorist bomb attack (2013). Those serve as platforms for Will and his co-workers and the stories that they report on for News Night. But it’s not just phoning sources and getting a couple of quotes. “The characters are in- depth. The content is engaging. Every word of every episode is written by Aaron,” explains Jeff. “It’s difficult to do that well. Aaron’s way isn’t the standard [way of making television]. That isn’t how he works. Every 12 days, when he’s done with one script, he has a new mountain to climb.”
The Newsroom highlights the daily struggles faced by a news team, from sources lying to infighting or even the bosses upstairs casting down doom and gloom. Will’s daily wars with channel president Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston) highlight these issues where ethics and morals are often in opposition to whether or not a story will make the news broadcast
The characters push each other to new levels too. Neal, for example, has gone from recording a news story on his cellphone to running social media for one of the country’s biggest news shows. Even something as arbitrary to viewers as social media is central to storylines, like season 3 episode 1 that focuses on the Boston Marathon story. After the humiliation of retracting a story in season 2 and seeing News Night viewer trust drop to almost nil, Neal runs a story about a terror attack before it breaks on rivals. When viewers realise that the News Night Twitter feed is reporting news as it’s happening, that belief comes flooding back. And that’s what happens in real life – news isn’t waiting for a broadcast at 20:00. If you want to know what’s happening, be glued to social media and bring The Newsroom to your phone.