NFL
By: Greg Rector
Sorry to all those Game of Thrones fans out there. I haven’t watched one second of that show. Simply not in my wheelhouse For fans of this century’s other great programs (The Wire Breaking Bad Sopranos etc), you bet I was entertained by those shows as well. For me though the two programs that I miss the most were both written and produced by Aaron Sorkin. Just as film devotees will tell you how way back when director Frank Capra captured the “American Spirit” in the late 1930s and early 40s with films like It’s A Wonderful Life and Mr. Smith Goes To Washington (Both starred Jimmy Stewart), Sorkin captured the imagination of American television viewers with two series that dealt with the good, the bad, and the ideal at times that is so elusive. The first show was The West Wing (1999-2006) and the second was The Newsroom (2012-2014), for someone like me a politics, news, and history junkie both shows were television “Nirvana” for me. I recently “binge-watched” both shows.
The West Wing
This show was actually four years after Sorkin had written the romantic/comedy film The American President starring Michael Douglas as President Andrew Shepherd. You can see parallels between both. The West Wing focused on the Presidency of Josiah “Jed” Bartlet (Played by Martin Sheen) and his White House staff. Sheen was also in The American President though in that movie he was White House Chief of Staff, and for us older folks he portrayed President John Kennedy in the 1970s mini-series, Kennedy, so his casting was simply brilliant, Sorkin’s writing is what made the show, however. From the very first episode where the Deputy Chief of staff Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford), gets into a beef with Christian conservatives until the final episode when we see the Bartlet administration end and the new President Santos administration (Jimmy Smits) start. The inner workings of Washington were portrayed. I admit the show was a ‘sanitized” version of reality but we saw every range of emotion, the good things, the terrible things, and such tremendous relationships all woven together by Sorkin into what days and nights inside the White House consist of. The realism was helped by having real past West Wing staffers from both parties (Marlin Fitzwater a Republican Press Secretary and DeeDee Myers a Democrat) as consultants along with many others. For me, the show’s biggest impact was the foreshadowing of real things and issues to come. Sorkin warned of the looming political divide we find ourselves in currently. He wrote episodes where a new Republican Speaker of the House tried to shut down the government and the tone was so divisive. There was no compromising allowed (remind you of the current GOP much?) and the rhetoric was nastier by the day. President Bartlet is far from perfect, he hides the fact from the American voters that he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis before his first election and ordered the assassination of a Middle Eastern Royal Family member who was actually a terrorist threat (highly illegal), so the morality of every character was challenged during the series. When President Bartlet and his staff faced a crisis be it foreign or domestic we got to see a glimpse into all of it. The show touched on so many issues that matter today so it is pretty timeless (Just remember everyone used flip phones then) and entertaining.
If you find it boring I understand that. The West Wing though with that glimpse into the inner workings of Washington D.C. really is a less painful way of understanding the U.S. political system warts and all, rather than going to a class.
The Newsroom
Can’t stand what so-called television news is these days? Join the club and watch The Newsroom. Starring Jeff Daniels as Will McAvoy the disillusioned anchor of the fictional cable news network ACN lead primetime broadcast. This time Aaron Sorkin tackles the news media and he pulls no punches. Unlike The West Wing though, Will McAvoy is actually a registered Republican, who is drowning in the abyss of “infotainment” until his ex-girlfriend is hired as his show’s new executive producer after Will has a breakdown at a town hall meeting. This is his response to a question from a bubbly 20-year-old college student who asked him “What makes the United States the greatest country on earth? The show intertwined actual news with their fictional broadcasts.
Will: It’s NOT the greatest country in the world, professor. That’s my answer. Moderator: …You’re saying? Will: Yes. Moderator: …Let’s talk about-Will: Fine. Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paycheck, but he gets to hit you with it any time he wants. It doesn’t cost money, it costs votes; it costs airtime and column inches. Do you know why people don’t like liberals? Because they lose. If liberals are so fucking smart, how come they lose so goddamn always?Sharon: Hey-!Will: [without letting her finish, he directs his attention to Lewis] And with a straight face, you’re gonna tell students that America’s so star-spangled awesome, that we’re the only ones in the world who have freedom? Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, and the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Australia, and Belgium have freedom. [laughs] So 207 sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.Moderator: All right –Will: And yeah, you, sorority girl. Just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, there are some things you should know, and one of them is, there’s absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we’re the greatest country in the world. We’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income, number 4 in the labor force, and number 4 in exports. We lead the world in only 3 categories: the number of incarcerated citizens per capita, the number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending, where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined. 25 of whom are allies. Now, none of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student. But you, nonetheless, are without a doubt a member of the worst, period, generation, period, ever, period, so when you ask, “What makes us the greatest country in the world?” I dunno what the fuck you’re talking about! Yosemite? [Pause] It sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons, passed laws, struck down laws for moral reasons, and we waged wars on poverty, not poor people. We sacrificed, and we cared about our neighbors. We put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists and the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars and acted like men. We aspired to intelligence, we didn’t belittle it, and it didn’t make us feel inferior. We didn’t identify ourselves by who we voted for in our last election, and we didn’t [sighs] we didn’t scare so easily…Huh. We were able to be all these things and to do all these things because we were informed. By great men, men who were revered. The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. [Pause, then to the moderator] Enough?
How true (though those rankings are from 2012), the warnings were even starker on The Newsroom. Can’t stand CNN, MSNBC, or FOX News? Will McAvoy and the rest of the staff of this broadcast change the landscape of cable news programs? It was done so powerfully and the following is quite possibly the very best speech Sorkin ever wrote for one of his characters
Will: Good evening. I’m Will McAvoy. This is News Night, and that was a clip of Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism chief to President George W. Bush, testifying before Congress on March 24, 2004. Americans liked that moment. I liked that moment. Adults should hold themselves accountable for failure. And so tonight I’m beginning this newscast by joining Mr. Clarke in apologizing to the American people for our failure. The failure of this program during the time I’ve been in charge of it to successfully inform and educate the American electorate. Let me be clear that I don’t apologize on behalf of all broadcast journalists, nor do all broadcast journalists owe an apology. I speak for myself. I was an accomplice to a slow and repeated and unacknowledged and unamended train wreck of failures that have brought us to now. I’m a leader in an industry that miscalled election results, hyped up terror scares, ginned up controversy, and failed to report on tectonic shifts in our country. From the collapse of the financial system to the truths about how strong we are to the dangers we actually face. I’m a leader in an industry that misdirected your attention with the dexterity of Harry Houdini while sending hundreds of thousands of our bravest young men and women off to war without due diligence. The reason we failed isn’t a mystery. We took a dive for the ratings. In the infancy of mass communications, the Columbus and Magellan of broadcast journalism, William Paley and David Sarnoff went down to Washington to cut a deal with Congress. Congress would allow the fledgling networks free use of taxpayer-owned airwaves in exchange for one public service. That public service would be one hour of air time set aside every night for informational broadcasting, or what we now call the evening news. Congress, unable to anticipate the enormous capacity television would have to deliver consumers to advertisers, failed to include in its deal the one requirement that would have changed our national discourse immeasurably for the better. Congress forgot to add that under no circumstances could there be paid advertising during informational broadcasting. They forgot to say that taxpayers will give you the airwaves for free and for 23 hours a day you should make a profit, but for one hour a night, you work for us. And now those network newscasts, anchored through history by honest-to-God newsmen with names like Murrow and Reasoner and Huntley and Brinkley and Buckley and Cronkite and Rather and Russert– Now they have to compete with the likes of me. A cable anchor who’s in the exact same business as the producers of Jersey Shore. And that business was good to us, but News Night is quitting that business right now. It might come as a surprise to you that some of history’s greatest American journalists are working right now, exceptional minds with years of experience and an unshakeable devotion to reporting the news. But these voices are a small minority now and they don’t stand a chance against the circus when the circus comes to town. They’re overmatched. I’m quitting the circus and switching teams. I’m going with the guys who are getting creamed. I’m moved that they still think they can win and I hope they can teach me a thing or two. From this moment on, we’ll be deciding what goes on our air and how it’s presented to you based on the simple truth that nothing is more important to a democracy than a well-informed electorate. We’ll endeavor to put information in a broader context because we know that very little news is born at the moment it comes across our wire. We’ll be the champion of facts and the mortal enemy of innuendo, speculation, hyperbole, and nonsense. We’re not waiters in a restaurant serving you the stories you asked for just the way you like them prepared. Nor are we computers dispensing only the facts because news is only useful in the context of humanity. I’ll make no effort to subdue my personal opinions. I will make every effort to expose you to informed opinions that are different from my own. You may ask who are we to make these decisions. We are Mackenzie McHale and me. Miss McHale is our executive producer. She marshals the resources of over 100 reporters, producers, analysts, technicians, and her credentials are readily available. I’m News Night’s managing editor and make the final decision on everything seen and heard on this program. Who are we to make these decisions? We’re the media elite. We’ll be back after this with the news.
In this era of so much misinformation, that speech is based on facts. In the first quote remember we could do all those things because “We were informed?’ We still get lied to (There was no Red Tsunami in the election), and daily get inundated with “ginned up” controversies (Both sides are guilty), to feed the beast of advertising revenue over real information. Sorkin again hammers on the further move right within the Republican Party (Tea Party a decade ago), and the lack of resolve to counter their lunacy. A full decade before the “Never 45**” crowd existed. When a master storyteller like Sorkin gets it right just as with The West Wing his words are timeless.
Take a break from fighting on social media, take a break from the cable news of today and just watch a couple of episodes of either show. You’ll see just how accurate Aaron Sorkin has been and why he captured the spirit of America just as much as the Frank Capra did way back when.
