Media and Debate: Put the Candidates on a Witness Stand
Using Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom to Discuss Primary Presidential Debates
HBO’s The Newsroom was the salute of prolific American television and film writer, Aaron Sorkin, to fans of his landmark political drama The West Wing. The opening credits even suggest this, with the soaring instrumentals over shots that pan over iconic American news figures and moments.
The show is known for this optimism even outside the cult of Sorkin, due to the wide popularity of a clip from the pilot that was probably shown to you by at least one of your politically-involved friends after a few too many drinks.
This clip, “The Newsroom — Opening Scene (Wow!),” has over two and a quarter million views. This 8-minute video really is the elevator pitch for the show, the story of a noble but human man who tries to use his love for a woman and his country to save both as they appear to be drifting from his reach.
One of Sorkin’s strengths as a writer is his ability to create these somewhat-real feeling, but nonetheless very inspiring, human moments. Hopeful idealism tempered by sardonic wit depicting a bleak reality with a hopeful future is Sorkin’s defining artistic contribution. As a result, this spirit permeates the run of The Newsroom, inclusive of Season One, Episode Nine: “The Blackout Part II: Mock Debate.”
In the episode, “Mock Debate,” among other tangential plot lines, the Atlantis News team makes their bid to the Republican Nation Council hoping to earn the privilege of hosting one of the 2012 Republican Presidential Primary debates at Princeton University.
The two RNC representatives who are sent to meet with the Atlantis crew at their studio are an older, refined gentleman — friend of Will McAvoy, Adam Roth, and his younger counterpart, Tate Brady. The name of this younger and more aggressive, contemporary Republican establishment ideologue literally sounds like it was crafted by lab scientist attempting to synthesize the perfect Republican name. Tate suggests in his first discussion with the Atlantis administrators that their network was the final candidate to host the debate before the RNC allowed Nancy Grace to host this debate.
Luckily for Tate Brady, the Newsroom gang is absolutely set on gaining the National Council’s endorsement to hold the debate as a means to an end. A component of their Don Quixote-inspired crusade to revive respectable American news coverage, Will McAvoy and the others attempt to tackle the institutional failures of the presidential debates of the United States. In Will McAvoy’s words: “The questions need to be tougher… The candidates have to square their campaign with facts… The rules [are that there are] no rules, I will question a candidate until I am done.”
Immediately following this explanation, the episode cuts to a montage of delightfully malicious jabs from Will McAvoy against the ‘nonsense’ those candidates were ‘spewing on the stump.’ This included asking Newt Gingrich how the President controls the price of oil, to asking Rick Santorum to account for the freedoms he had lost since Obama came to office that would snowball into ‘telling his grandchildren how America used to be free.’
However, it is because of this line of questioning that the crew at Atlantis loses the opportunity to inquire to Michelle Bachmann as to what God’s voice sounds like. Tate Brady, young Republican superstar, is angered into believing that Will McAvoy — a professed Republican — ‘isn’t on the team.’
And in a scene symbolic of the divide currently fracturing the GOP, Adam Roth, a reasonable conservative looking to promote an electorate-informing debate, is out-shouted and out-ultimatum-ed by Tate Brady.
Were the intentions of the Atlantis news crew too ambitious? Almost definitely. As one of the minor characters phrases it later in the episode: the suggestion that one news network could categorically improve the presidential debate system is not feasible, putting it politely. However, losing the debate allows The Newsroom staff to turn their attention back to covering substantive news rather than tracking the progress of the Casey Anthony, which is the grander objective at stake.
This episode is fast-paced and enjoyable, as well as being important commentary on the state of the Republican party in 2011 as well as the presidential debate system as a whole.
Aaron Sorkin does provide the politically distressed viewer some resolution at the end of the episode, as a final scene depicts Adam Roth showing a clip of Michelle Bachmann being asked her preference between Elvis and Johnny Cash at the next Republican primary debate to a conflicted Tate Brady. She answers “Bolth” and bolth of the Republicans drink in silent frustration at the highjacking of their party.
