Jul6 The Newsroom vs. the newsroom
This week David Carr and A. O. Scott dissected Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” in their weekly Web show, The Sweet Spot.
As the two critics point out, anyone who has worked in a newsroom, and then seen a show about a newsroom, knows that the two realities rarely align. For example, the banter in Sorkin’s “Newsroom” is stilted and more contrived than a Shakespearian play. But, it does make for some good TV.
In this episode, Scott asks the ultimate authority, Jill Abramson, The Times executive editor, what she thinks of the fictional newsrooms versus, well, ours. The always smart and principaled Abramson shares this wonderful quote about journalism today:
“There’s been a race to the bottom that has made the public cynical, and I worry that that cynicism may in fact undermine the public’s belief in the value of The First Amendment and freedom of the press. The bottom line, to me, facts desperately matter, and they’re hard to get, and that’s what we do. That’s our calling.” – Jill Abramson, executive editor of The New York Times.
To me, that sounds like a quote from a real newsroom — not the TV variety.
I don’t know, the Abramson quote sounds a lot like Will McAvoy’s stuff to me.
I agree with much of the article. It’s interesting that people feel the need to move away from traditional media sources due to the standard media practice of reporting stories without researching and presenting the facts without judgement. The transparency of social networks and true eye witness reporting through Twitter and Facebook will bury traditional media news outlets unless they do more digging for facts beyond the surface reports. Whatever happened to investigative journalism? If they networks brought this perspective to the social media reporters “us” findings, then The News would in my opinion bring more transformation to our culture. What do you like about this idea?
If news has indeed been commoditized and reduced to a series of messages buttressed by edited facts — ala FOX — then a show that reminds us of why news and facts matters/mattered/should matter must be a good thing. Otherwise, the masses seem to forget the value of a news organization until tragedy strikes (I write this on the anniversary of 9/11). I confess to a little bias: first, one of my favorite books ever was JD Moehringer’s “The Tender Bar,” and second, my dad was an editor at the Denver Post who referred to himself for most of his life as a “newspaperman,” eschewing the more formal “journalist” as something akin to putting on airs. He was a product of that Cronkhite era and proud of it. Yes, there was corner-cutting, but in theory they reported on that, too. There was a responsibility to get to the truth, both when it was and was not sensational (I do like how David Carr refers to the accretion of un-glamorous work until you get the whole). I think as long as we have that dedication to the micro and macro stories, somewhere — and there are days I think it’s only in a handful of places, including the New York Times — then we are a little safer. Maybe The Newsroom isn’t perfect (there’s a whole lot more swearing in every newsroom I’ve been in) but that it has struck a chord should be maybe a reason for a toast more than a giggle.