The Newsroom

HBO is known for churning out original television shows that are widely considered as the best on TV. Time after time they prove with each series, why they are a premium cable channel as opposed to just basic. I have watched many of these series in there entirety since i first got HBO in high school and i have loved every one. The most recent series i have started watching is The Newsroom. This is a show written by Aaron Sorkin about a news personality named Will McAvoy who is, in the world of the show, the most trusted name in news. The series is based off of the fact that for his entire career will has been very unbiased and rarely stated his actual opinion on anything and that has all changed. He has taken his show in a new direction aimed to help the american voters see what is really going on in modern news.

The show is brilliantly written, mixing real world events with incredible characters with very compelling subplots. The show is set roughly a year ago and each episode deals with the reporting of an event that has happened in real life. Certain news stories include the riots in Egypt and the killing of Osama Bin Laden. Most of the show is focused on how a story evolves in the news and how daily news show's like Will McAvoys are produced. However there is a good portion that shows the actual news coverage that they are producing and when Will is on the show i find a part of it a bit troubling.

Basically for me i am split between whether or not this show is cleverly written for the time it is being shown in or if it is being used as a means of social commentary. The reason why i say this is because a lot of Will McAvoys reporting deals with slamming of the conservative side of politics. In a recent episode i watched, one of the segments that they showed Will reporting was one designed to point out some of the hypocritical flaws in Rick Santorums campaign. Part of me believes that this is just cleverly written but the other part thinks there is something else going on here. I for one support the possible message i think might be there which is this. The show is trying to support better journalism designed to educate the masses, not scare them. That is one of Will's biggest values on the show. He doesnt lie about anything on air and stresses the importance of good, honest journalism designed to inform. While i am not entirely sure this is what the show is going for, i really hope it is because this is a message that would really help out our country right now.

The Insider

The Insider is a 1999, true story, movie directed by Michael Mann that was nominated for seven academy awards. Russell Crowe's performance in this movie is absolutely fantastic and he was nominated for an academy award for his role.  He would follow this role up with a best actor academy award for Gladiator.  Russell Crowe plays a employee for a tobacco company who starts to leak information to the journalist Lowell Bergman, played by Al Pacino despite the fact that it was in his contract not too.  Russell Crowe takes you on a wonderful ride and you really end up rooting for both Russell Crowe and Al Pacino.

Al Pacino also delivers a fantastic performance despite not being nominated.  He plays a journalist who has to fight with the upper news persons at CBS because they do not want to show the story on 60 minutes that would deal a huge blow to big tobacco.  What really brings these performances together is the fantastic directing by Michael Mann and the cinematography work by Dante Spinotti together they paint a beautiful picture of a thrilling story about two men.  I think this is one of the best news movies to ever be filmed.  I do have a bias because the movie is about my uncle Lowell Bergman who is played by Al Pacino.

It is a fantastic movie and Christopher Plummer as one of the CBS heads really rounds out the cast of a fantastic movie.  It is really worth seeing and you will not be disappointed

Visualizing the newspaper of the future...

After listening to Arielle Emmett's presentation yesterday I started wondering what role, if any newspapers will play in the future. I don't think they will exist. It seems like so many times I hear journalists talk about the future of media they seem like a bunch of suits running scared of an obvious regime change.

Emmett mentioned that losing newspapers could be a threat to our very democracy. I highly doubt it. Isn't blogging the most democratic form of news? I think the news media has to resign themeselves with the fact that they can't compete with some kid with a camera phone.  Plus, they need to recognize that good writing can come from anywhere and not all of these staff writers are publishing anything worth reading.