What is right or wrong with the Newsroom interview and is there anything justifiable about the way that it was conducted?
In the episode “Bullies” of the fictional TV show Newsroom, an interview featuring anchor Will McAvoy and US senator Rick Santorium’s aid Sutton Wall demonstrates a line of unethical questioning that aims to defame Wall rather than contribute to an ethical display of news. For starters, the interview begins and ends as a provocation against the aid with the use of harsh intonations and offensive language meant to intimidate the guest. The line of questioning seems to be directed only at his aid’s personal sexual identity and race rather than the matter at hand which was the senator’s view on a debate.
Before the heated interview is shown in the episode, we are shown a therapy session between McAvoy and his psychologist, indicating McAvoy’s personal struggles. McAvoy could have been projecting his own insecurities as a way of alleviating some childhood bullying he went through. Fast forward to the interview where McAvoy begins the line of questioning with a brash and harsh tone, making whatever answer Wall attempted to give seem negative, as it was probably intended to be a provocation from the beginning. The cynical tone is understated when McAvoy initiates a dialogue directly on the basis of Wall’s personal life rather than political debate. Not only are the questions highly argumentative, when Wall interjects and demands that the interview be more appropriate, McAvoy seems to block out any sense of empathy towards his guest. It is thus certainly not a friendly interview, as McAvoy’s attempt to be friendly at the beginning was probably a tactic to trick Wall into thinking it would be fair-game when it was quite the opposite.
The entire interview is comprised of personal attacks about Wall’s homosexuality and undermines his very reputation and image as both a college professor and an ex-political aid. What is wrong with the interview is that McAvoy seems to be distasteful towards any attempt at a fair dialogue for the purpose of his own power. He uses words like “sick” “deviant” and “disgusting” and quite frankly, he was probably projecting his own feelings of unworthiness and “brokenness” onto Wall. He asks Wall if Santorium thought that there was “Something wrong with you that needs to be fixed”. It is quite clear that Santorium may have been unconsciously projecting his own sense of inadequacy on a man who was simply there to have an open-ended discussion on McAvoy’s show. Under no circumstance would one ever be allowed to harass an interviewee in this way, on the basis of his homosexuality and race. McAvoy even presses on Wall by telling him that he may be black, but he “does not have to be gay”. The line of questioning clearly understates the impact of how serious gay and racial discrimination probably is in the United States.
In light of the relevant issues about a socially constructed idea of ethics, it seems that when a person is interviewed, they would try to act in the best interest of what it is they represent. McAvoy did not allow for a discussion to occur, thus, disabling discourse that could have benefited whoever was watching the interview. Issues about sexuality and race are never black or white, as McAvoy framed it to be, on account of his own personal struggles that day. His assertions and attacks seem to only undermine the ethical standards of an interview which is respect for justice and proper conduct in front of a large audience.
When he chose to devalue a guest on a show, his ethical conduct was undermined by his conscious attempt at destroying the reputation of a man who gave him his respect and time. An ethical discourse would highlight the need for temperance, a man should aim to err on the side of caution when it comes to dealing with people for a respective cause such as political discourse. Disengaging an enemy for the sake of his own proprietarily need for revenge, however unconscious it may have been to McAvoy is something that undeniably damages an individual. Drunk on power, in this case, is McAvoy in this interview, when he chose to target Wall. His abusive temperament, his abuse of his own power, his own intellect and his ability to reason were unfortunately not tools he chose to use. He consciously told his team “Let me finish this” as he is badgering Wall about his sexuality and unworthiness. It was clearly not an issue of who is right or wrong, but how far could he go without somebody interfering, a fervent display of totalitarian power.
It was thus immoral on the basis of McAvoy being a rational creature, aware of damage and consequence, yet oblivious to his own projection of his childhood trauma until the very end of the episode where he understates “I was the bully”, when he realized that he may have been projecting his own victim state onto an innocent individual.
