TOM FRANCIS
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The Newsroom

That leaked Aaron Sorkin script I wrote up a while back is now a show, called The Newsroom. It goes behind the scenes of a nightly news show with a grouchy celebrity anchor, and revolves around him, his new executive producer and the crew. This means I would watch it religiously even if it wasn’t a Sorkin thing – I have no particular interest in the news, but every show or film made about it seems to be great.

Newsroom, though, has been panned. The only piece I’ve read that was positive about the show ended on a bizarre and contextless account of an exchange that makes Sorkin sound like a patronising sexist prick. Particularly bizarre given his work, which typically mocks sexists, features some of the best female characters on television, and even has them competently discuss their differing takes on feminism.

Weirdest of all, Newsroom does seem sexist. It opens with the male star dressing down a female student for her dumb question about America, in which he takes pains to use “sorority girl” as a pejorative, imply she couldn’t possibly be politically engaged (despite her presence at this political debate), and claim America was the greatest country in the world back when “we acted like men”. If it’s meant to be a sexist character rather than a sexist writer, it’s awkward that a) he’s the protagonist, b) he’s so obviously acting as the writer’s mouthpiece at the time, setting up the manifesto for the show.

Most of the reasons to dislike Newsroom stem from that character, Will. His opening meltdown speech is half great (“America is not the greatest country in the world”) and half terrible (“But it used to be”), and that’s as close as we ever get to a reason to like or care about him. Some reviews object to the amount of preaching – I think the preaching itself is excellent, but when it does get old, it’s because people are having to preach at Will, to persuade him to stop being so pathetic.

Despite all that, I really like it. I’m not convinced Sorkin actually is sexist, I think he’s just misjudged how some of this stuff sounds. And I don’t think Will is going to be a problem forever: once he’s on air, we finally see his virtues.

The emerging news story and the crew’s frantic reaction to it is exciting and inspiring for exactly the reasons it seemed to be in the script, and that’s what I’m expecting more of. News is important, and live TV is tense – it has the potential to combine the virtues of his last three shows. It also has the potential to focus on the kind of emotional stubbornness that made Dana and Casey’s relationship get old in Sports Night, Matt and Harriett eternally tedious in Studio 60, and Will so hard to like in this pilot. I’m optimistic it won’t.

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