Sorkin's The Newsroom

The opening scene from the new HBO series. Shocking that studiously non-partisan journalist is actually stereotypical liberal, I know. And it just gets better from here--even more preaching follows. I'll let Dorothy Rabinowitz take over: "the preening virtue that weighs on this Aaron Sorkin series like a great damp cloud—the right-mindedness oozing from every line—isn't going away. It's the heart of this enterprise... like all the sanctimonious twaddle here, well nigh unbearable."

There's something in the theme of journalists and news reporting that can bring out the worst in writers—though not, to be sure, one like James L. Brooks, who wrote the magnificent "Broadcast News" (1987). That something has to do with the view, which has come to be an article of faith over the past 75 years or so, that journalism is a sacred calling deserving of reverence. "The Newsroom" gives every spine-chilling sign of immersion in that faith. Which may explain some of Mr. Sorkin's apparent difficulty conceiving reasonably human characters in this saga of broadcast journalists... Still, it's clear that Mr. Sorkin's main interest in "The Newsroom" runs to concerns other than characters and storytelling. There's anchor Will—who is, we're assured, a Republican—going on camera in episode three to blast away at certain social and political forces that constitute grave dangers to the nation. (In Will's world, no danger ever emanates from the political left—it just doesn't happen.) His targets include, not surprisingly, Gov. Jan Brewer's immigration bill, Sarah Palin, the new Republican majority in Congress, Fox News—and, not least, the Tea Party. That last a subject on which Will goes to town with ferocious firepower all the more deadly for its employment of actual quotations. There's Rand Paul attempting to explain certain of his complicated social views. There's Sharron Angle, briefly a heroine of the Tea Party, complaining that the press had failed to ask the questions she wanted to answer. An episode like this one, drawing on the deep bitterness of our current political wars, brings "The Newsroom" to life. But it's a kind destined to be intermittent. The show's deeper problems—thin drama, a thick hide of smugness—would take far more than that to overcome.

Can't believe I watched that. Times like this make you grateful you don't have the job that requires you to watch 3 whole episodes. Update: Jake Tapper's TNR review:

McAvoy—and, by extension, Sorkin—preach political selflessness, but they practice pure partisanship; they extol the Fourth Estate’s democratic duty, but they believe that responsibility consists mostly of criticizing Republicans. This is done through the oldest trick in the book for a Hollywood liberal: by having McAvoy be a “sane Republican” who looks at his party with sadness and anger.