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Among the Intellectualoids
All the News That’s Fit to Pimp
In case you didn’t know, Aaron Sorkin’s HBO Newsroom is all about saving Republicans from conservatism.
In a recent episode of Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO drama, Newsroom, about the inner workings of a network news program, a young staffer puts his fist through a computer monitor. He had become enraged after repeatedly viewing a clip in which Rush Limbaugh expressed lack of sympathy for foreign correspondents imperiled while covering the uprising in Egypt. I can relate. Not fifteen minutes earlier, the same episode had me seething during a scene in which unfounded attacks were made on reputable policy shops like Heritage and Cato. I had the good sense not to break my hand over it, though.
Newsroom follows the exploits of Will McAvoy, a once staid evening news anchor whose profanity laden moment of honesty during a panel discussion at Northwestern University transforms him into a YouTube sensation. His direct superior decides to seize upon this notoriety and refashion Will—whose reputation had been that he was safe, the Jay Leno of news—into the sort of old fashioned, idealistic newsman who speaks truth to power. Not surprisingly for an Aaron Sorkin show, power correlates approximately 1:1 with conservative interests.
The twist is that McAvoy, played as likeably flawed by veteran actor Jeff Daniels, constantly proclaims that he is a member of the Republican Party and balks at any notion of liberal favoritism on his show. Right. We are informed that conservatives perceive him as a RINO. He does little to bolster his GOP credentials, scoffing at the New York Post for being too lowbrow, blanching when a date brings a legally permitted concealed carry weapon into his swank Manhattan apartment, and describing himself as a member of the “media elite” on air — using the phrase proudly as a credential, not in the self-effacing pejorative.
It is almost as if Sorkin foresaw the coming complaints from conservative watchdog groups about his latest unbalanced show and decided to add a measure of even-handedness. And a weak measure, at that. McAvoy is not so much Sorkin’s ideal newsman, as his ideal conservative. He never articulates a single conservative value and uses his airtime to attack other conservatives. More on that later. Even McAvoy’s ostensible Republicanism itself is played for smug laughs. “I am a registered Republican,” he tells his boss, “I only seem liberal because I believe that hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage.” Ignoring for a moment that hurricanes are actually caused by low pressure, the irony is apparently lost on McAvoy that the global warming agenda he alludes to is essentially a secular religion with adherents as zealous as anti-gay bigots.
McAvoy, supposedly distressed by what he sees as the extremist drift of the GOP, turns his guns on the Tea Party movement. In his eyes, the movement started as a legitimate populist response to heavy-handed governance but transformed into a rag tag group of ignorant radicals acting as useful idiots for the Koch brothers. He laments that a dentist is running a campaign to the right of a career conservative politician. A dentist! Remember, viewers, in this progressive world born of the imperious politics of Woodrow Wilson, only “experts” should hold office.
The anti-Tea Party crusade begins with McAvoy embarrassing two blameless activists on air for the sin of declaring that the Tea Party is a decentralized movement while being unaware that the Koch brothers funded a rally in a neighboring state. He helpfully informs them that the Kochs could buy their liberal equivalent, George Soros, several times over, as if greater success in business somehow makes the exercise of political speech insidious. The network owner, played by noted American super-patriot Jane Fonda, later warns McAvoy’s boss that the Koch brothers bury enemies under Brinks trucks for these sorts of incidences.
Sorkin’s greatest beef with the Tea Party, besides their purported ignorance, seems to be that they are centrally controlled by malevolent plutocrats. In a later episode, he approvingly juxtaposes government employees picketing against Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker with pro-democracy protesters in Tahrir Square. Surely, those noble activists who trashed the Wisconsin legislative chambers with an illegal and raucous sit-in, bilked taxpayers with phony doctor’s notes, and brought about recall proceedings of a duly elected public official over a matter of political disagreement weren’t centrally aided or influenced at all by union leaders.
One wonders if Sorkin is also a fan of that other “decentralized” protest movement, Occupy Wall Street, which completely exceeds the Tea Party in several key indicators including rapes, shootings, and defecation on police vehicles. But aside from his fandom for noxious political movements, Sorkin’s latest creative effort betrays two flawed lines of reasoning typical of liberals at the turn of this century.
The first is their assessment of the news industry. Liberals have never been comfortable with conservative dominance of talk radio, which developed out of the less overt liberal domination of every other medium. Conservative talk radio emerged as a refuge for those who sought an alternative to left-leaning traditional news. With the advent of the Internet, the rise of blogging, and an increase in the number of cable channels, the news has been democratized to a degree never previously thought possible.
All of this stymies liberals, who fondly recall the days of purportedly impartial newsmen, McAvoy’s “media elite.” McAvoy’s news director calls for McAvoy to model himself after Murrow, who brought down McCarthy, and Cronkite, who ended the Vietnam War. The arrogant assumption underpinning this call for a return to news in an old-fashioned mold is that if Americans just heard the “truth,” they would vote for progressives. One should presumably ignore the facts that McCarthy, though his methods were deplorable, was correct about government infiltration by communists, or that we were actually winning the Vietnam War before a crisis of faith brought on by Cronkite’s blistering — and inaccurate — Tet Offensive editorial.
Sorkin’s most frequent news industry targets are Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. A weekly fixture of Newsroom is some clip or another in which either of those pundits misinforms their audience. What Sorkin misses is that no one gets their news from pundits. The audience that consumes Limbaugh and Beck is made up of dyed in the wool conservatives and masochistic liberals seeking entertainment. Anyone who does get their news from talk shows already knows where they stand and presumably wouldn’t be swayed by the “truths” dispensed by Sorkin’s brand of journalism.
Jon Stewart, who anchors the Daily Show, a “fake news” program on Comedy Central, made a similarly flawed argument in his now infamous raking over the coals of conservative pundit Tucker Carlson. Stewart took Carlson to task for his work as co-anchor of CNN’s Crossfire, a legendary political program which may or may not have been taken off the air due to Stewart’s stinging guest appearance. He accused the hosts of doing a disservice to the public discourse by featuring partisan political theater rather than legitimate debate. The great unfairness, of course, is that the audience of Crossfire was made up of political junkies, not truth seekers.
The second logical flaw, and one that has even greater implications for our national discourse, is a line of reasoning best described as “poisoned root, poisoned fruit.” It all stems from the tortured progressive understanding of the relationship between cause and effect. Naturally, if an organization accepts corporate money from villains such as the Koch brothers, their product is tainted, according to liberals. It is not that people — including the wealthy — support causes that they philosophically agree with or that buttress their rational interests. No, conservative think tanks are merely bought and paid for.
A former employer of mine was once slammed in a leading national newspaper for accepting a grant from the foundation of a large retailer. No matter that the amount of money was just about enough for a single large dinner event, and was spit in the bucket of a multimillion dollar budget. The reporter — this was a news piece, not an editorial — implied that my employer had written favorably about the retailer because of this grant money, as unconvincing as that would seem to anyone with common sense. No wonder conservatives seek out alternative media.
Liberals dutifully ignore that the flow of dollars cuts both ways. Soros and Buffett on the left throw their money behind plenty of political agendas. While they are usually wrong in their policy prescriptions, they are certainly free to state them. Buffett and Soros have come by their beliefs honorably, and so they support organizations that do work amenable to those beliefs. The same goes for the Koch brothers on the other side. Nothing sinister is at play and there is nothing inherently harmful about the wealthy using the influence their wealth affords them. Such is the marketplace of ideas.
Sorkin is a gifted storyteller. My college friends and I used to have West Wing days in which we would try to imitate the rapid fire dialogue characteristic of his programs. I will surely continue to watch Newsroom as although it puts any glass monitors within my vicinity at risk of being punched, it is extremely entertaining. But Sorkin needs to be more intellectually honest. There is no such thing as an impartial newsman, conservative money in politics is no more or less detrimental to civic life than liberal money in politics, and a thin veneer of “balance” is insulting to viewers.
About the Author
Bill Zeiser is a communications consultant living in New York City and a 2012 Publius Fellow of the Claremont Institute. Follow him on Twitter @BillZeiser.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (34) | Leave a comment
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Aristocat| 8.2.12 @ 8:20AM
Why did they make Jeff Daniels up to look exactly like Steve Doocy of Fox News?
TLP| 8.2.12 @ 8:27AM
Why would you watch this garbage?
The Koch Brothers?
What about the Jewish Boy who helped the Nazis in their Quest for the Extermination of his fellow Jews?
What about Warren Buffet, and all of his Trains hauling all of that Oil, that would have been Transported through the XL Pipeline, that would have Created Thousands of REAL Shovel Ready Jobs?
What about THE TRAITOR - Jane Fonda?
What about THE RAPIST - Bill Clinton?
What about that Murdering Black Racist - Al (Kill the Jews/Kill all the Non Blacks in Freddie's and Burn it to the Ground) - Sharpton?
Client #9 has a Show.
The Murderous, White Hating, Jew Hating, America Hating, PERSONAL FRIEND of our Muslim In Chief, is Invited to Chicago by the "JEWISH" Democrat Mayor - Rham Emanuel - that he might Lock His Lips on Farrakhan's Ass Cheeks.
Meanwhile, a Fast Food Restaurant that Creates Jobs, Serves the Public good Food, treats it's Employees good, pays their taxes, and never hurt anybody, is VILLIFIED by this same Ass Kisser in Chicago, for DARING to say that he believes that Marriage is between a Man and a Woman.
Obviously, this show will do well. Why wouldn't it?
Liberalism is the Height of make believe. It's not real, in the sense that it could ever work.
Detroit, Oakland, Flynt, Baltimore, California, Michigan, Illinois.
That's the Real World of Liberalism. A Post Apocalyptic World, where the inhabitants prey on one another for SURVIVAL.
The one on HBO?
Entertainment for Useful Idiots.
MK48| 8.2.12 @ 10:55AM
Tim .........don't forget the "ass kisser" and the "muslim chief" you refer to 6 months ago was on the other side of all this gay sh*t.
I say THEY are in trouble and THEY know it...right now they are pissing into the wind and running out of clean dry clothes.
TLP| 8.2.12 @ 4:48PM
I say - you are absolutely right.
LANDSLIDE.
Frank Drackman| 8.2.12 @ 9:04AM
Ahhh those college days when my friends and I would try to imitate the rapid fire dialogue characteristic of his programs...
WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
You obviously didn't go to a REAL college, i.e. one with a BCS level football team...
I didn't get that pathetic until Med School when my classmates would compete to see who could trash-talk the best E-boniks, we even had fake names,
(I was "Skillet")..
Walked into the OR one day, and said to who I thought was one of my fellow Interns
"Hey N-Word! You got any Mother-Effin Ephedrine? Damn Bee-Otches be Holdin out on me again!"
Too bad it was one of the Housekeeping staff(Everyone looks the same in Scrubs and a Mask)
Frank
Doctor Right| 8.2.12 @ 9:27AM
This show is a liberal fantasy of what "Republicans" should actually be:
Liberals.
I dumped HBO about 4 years ago and have never looked back. Other than The Sopranos and 6-Feet Under their shows stink and the price is absurd.
Cable-TV is about to undergo an out-of-body experience similar to network news. Put simply, I don't need it anymore, and I'm willing to bet there's millions like me.
I get my movies from Netflix - and stream them to my TV with Apple TV. Apple TV is about to offer HULU, so any shows I might want to watch on cable will be available that way.
Frankly, the ONLY thing I need from cable is the NFL. And as soon as Apple TV cuts a deal with the NFL (fingers crossed), I won't need it for that, either.
So get ready, cable, for some major pain in your pocket-books.
And since you scum-bags convinced the government to grant you local monopolies, you deserve all the pain you're going to bet.
Frank Drackman| 8.2.12 @ 9:51AM
So you've never watched "Hark Knocks"??
OK I'll admit, Rex Ryan was almost as disturbing as those 2 Homos on "6 feet under"
Your loss.
Frank
c. j. acworth| 8.2.12 @ 9:53AM
I dumped TV entirely about 10 years ago. Based on what I've seen on other folks' screens and read about in articles like this one, I'd say I made the right move. With the money I save not paying a sattelite bill I buy books. (Remember them?)
Frank Drackman| 8.2.12 @ 12:34PM
You dumped TV?
So you're sayin your Home doesnot contain a Television Set?
You are aware, there's an invention called Television, and on this invention they show Shows?
Well the way they pick Shows is they make one Show,
Ooops, sorry, lapsing into my Jules Winfield, you remember,
Oh yeah, you don't watch TV, so you wouldn't know who the fuck Jules Winfield is, would you?
Yeah right, I know, its the Internets, I can say I have a 16 inch penis and nobody can prove me wrong...
Somehow the Peoples who "Don't watch TV" seem to know alot about it.
Stick| 8.2.12 @ 3:19PM
Dumped HBO years ago. Bought it for the Sapranos and dropped it because of everything else. Shoosh, what a stinky network.
Appleby| 8.2.12 @ 9:56AM
Who watches this stuff?
Bill Carson| 8.2.12 @ 10:41AM
Personally, I wouldn't waste 10 seconds on a TV show like 'Network'. It's trash, just like all the other regular shows. I recommend major league baseball.
Houdini| 8.2.12 @ 11:09AM
Any show with POS Hanoi Jane is not worth watching.
Kwan| 8.2.12 @ 11:23AM
Hitler had Leni Riefenstahl the American Left has Aaron Sorkin. The subliminal message in all of Sorkin's work is that the lefties are the great benefactors of mankind and the conservatives are all-around nogoodniks. Rather than contaminating your brain with the leftist propaganda that any show Sorkin is involved with will be overloaded with, you might find a more profitable inverstment of your time watching "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson.
Tom Kyba| 8.2.12 @ 12:28PM
I guess when you've had success stereotyping liberals as somewhat flawed but good people and conservatives as the opposite, you can stop pretending and just go whole hog on the juvenile ranting.
And the apex of Jeff Daniel's career as an actor is the Dumb and Dumber scene on the non-working toilet.
Frank Drackman| 8.2.12 @ 12:56PM
I don't watch TV, so could you hep a brutha out?
Was Jeff Daniel's "Dumb" or "Dumber"??
Frank
PsychoDad| 8.2.12 @ 12:32PM
The Collaborationist Media ride again.
Petronius| 8.2.12 @ 12:37PM
Somebody tell Sorkin we don't have to watch. He wants his bullshit on "real" network newscasts. But the big 3 anchors have bigger egos and will give us their own.
JD| 8.2.12 @ 1:02PM
This is how the Left operates. Key to all they do is replacing the truth with "facts" that align with their fantasy world and make their ideas look good. They do a lot of this through their media, but they do even more by controlling entertainment. They made more people think Sarah Palin said "I can see Russia from my house" than there are people who realize that it was Tina Fey. They want the line between their shows and reality to blur in people's minds until they think stuff like this show is real and accurate.
LarryK| 8.2.12 @ 1:11PM
Look, Liberals live in a fantasy world where they know what is best for all. And the fake news on an HBO series is no different than the fake news the Mainstream Media dolls out every night. Only fools believe the fake news.
stmichrick| 8.2.12 @ 2:03PM
Bill Z; Thanks for validating my decision not to spend any time giving this Sorkin production a shot. Unfortunately for the Right, we have yet to produce comparable storytelling in Big Media or movies that will joust in the ratings with him and Oliver Stone.
It's a shame because we don't have to twist logic and ignore important facts in order to make a point.
JD| 8.2.12 @ 2:26PM
What we produce is scorned by the liberals who control distribution.
Frank Drackman| 8.2.12 @ 2:46PM
Why does Jeff Daniels always have to play the bad guy?
Pompous Reporter, that creepy killer in "Blood Work", Union Army Officer in "Gettysburgh"...
stmichrick| 8.2.12 @ 3:07PM
Well, he did play a heroic George Washington in a television movie a few years ago; but I know what you mean.
I think Jeff Daniels is useful to Hollywood screenwriters because he has this innocent, midwestern, earnest persona that the Left loves to portray as deeply flawed and/or phony.
Third Army| 8.2.12 @ 2:56PM
Is anyone watching this show? I'd like to know the ratings.
Clearcreek| 8.2.12 @ 6:13PM
Mr. Zeiser:
You are correct; Mr. Sorkin is free to pollute the airwaves with his perverted lies about the Tea Party & conservatives in general. We can take it...
However, you should also send a fax (not e-mail) to several of Newsroom's main sponsors explaining how lies on Newsroom leads one to wonder if their commercials aren't also full of lies. After all, isn't that Sorkin's argument with the Koch brothers? Liars lie together, don't they??
Otherwise, Mr. S. is not only pimping the news... he's also pimping your eyeballs & buying power.
Cpm| 8.2.12 @ 8:43PM
Newsroom is a pay-cable show on HBO, and doesn't have sponsors. Subscribers pay for it.
Bob K| 8.3.12 @ 1:40AM
Who is Aaron Sorkin and why does everybody here seem to think he is important?
stmichrick| 8.4.12 @ 10:16AM
Ratings, Bob. Which translates into influence over the uninformed. Conservatives have little to turn to in this medium.
Kilgore Trout| 8.3.12 @ 12:15PM
SoreKin is a libtard crypto commie who will be among the first beheaded if he gets his wish and the far left takes over with the moozles.
stmichrick| 8.4.12 @ 10:23AM
Kilgore; when that happens SoreKin will pitch them a project about flawed yet stylish mullahs seeking truth as they sort through a newly conquered Great Satan (United States of Infidels).
To behead or not to behead; that is the storyline premise.