Over the previous four episodes, Aaron Sorkin's The Newsroom has become the liberal media's Sunday night darling. So, after the July 15th offering, which featured fictional news anchor Will MacAvoy comparing Tea Party members to sex offenders, a little conservative-bashing was expected. The July 22 episode did not disappoint, with the team at "Atlantic Cable News" delving into the Citizen's United Supreme Court case and effectively accusing Clarence Thomas of bribery.
In the first few minutes of the episode, the news team becomes aware of the overthrow of Mubarak's government in Egypt. Despite the fact that one of the most volatile countries in the world has ousted its dictator, they decided to lead with a report that Republican governor Scott Walker is "trapped in a newspaper office with 75 teachers outside." They then analyze a tape of a reporter asking the Koch brothers if the Citizen's United decision increased their influence. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
Aaron Sorkin
HBO's The Newsroom continued its anti-GOP streak Sunday evening with its fourth episode, "I'll Try to Fix You." While previous installments of Aaron Sorkin's latest series have been markedly anti-GOP, last night's offering was probably the most delirious. Self-righteous cable news anchor Will MacAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels, set his sights on gun owners, going so far as to compare politicians who are in favor of the Second Amendment to sex offenders.
The fact that the right to keep and bear arms is enshrined in the Constitution -- that document which every federal officeholder is sworn to defend -- is to his mind, irrelevant. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
As NewsBusters previously reported, CNN's Howard Kurtz was respectfully mentioned in last week's Tea Party-bashing episode of HBO's The Newsroom.
On Sunday's Reliable Sources, despite having called Aaron Sorkin's new series a "crackup" and a "snooze," the host was quite pleased with having his reputation used to validate a program he had previously panned (video follows with transcript and commentary):
As NewsBusters previously reported, this past Sunday's Tea Party-bashing episode of HBO's The Newsroom featured a lead character prominently mentioning the far-left, George Soros-funded propaganda organization Think Progress.
On Monday, the co-author of that episode, one Gideon Yago, tweeted his thanks to TP reporter Adam Peck for "reporting and archiving" that was "vital to the research we did":
People turning on HBO Sunday evening must have thought they'd accidentally switched channels to MSNBC.
In the third episode of Aaron Sorkin's new drama The Newsroom, those involved in the fictitious cable news network ACN all basically became MSNBC employees mercilessly attacking the Tea Party whilst comparing Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) to the late Joe McCarthy (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):
Despite the fact that few people are watching "The Newsroom," premimum cable channel HBO aseriesnnounced on Tuesday that it has renewed the left-leaning new series for a second season even though only two episodes have been broadcast.
The premiere of the show, which aired on Sunday, June 24, drew a mediocre total of 2.14 million viewers, which included a second airing, as it chronicled the behind-the-scenes events at the fictional Atlantis Cable News (ACN) series.
Since liberal producer Aaron Sorkin's HBO series The Newsroom made waves a couple of weeks ago with its infamous speech asserting that America is "not the greatest country in the world anymore," CNN host Piers Morgan has repeatedly brought up this charge with guests on his Piers Morgan Tonight show.
Morgan, who so far has not brought up the speech with any clearly conservative guest who might disagree with the premise, first raised the issue on the Wednesday, June 20, show with guest Billy Corgan of the rock group, the Smashing Pumpkins. Morgan:
During the June 24th premiere of Aaron Sorkin's new HBO drama, The Newsroom, viewers were introduced to Will MacAvoy (played by Jeff Daniels), a popular news anchor with scathing opinions about the United States. Episode two continued the liberal talking points, this time portraying conservative opinions on immigration as both racist and stupid.
On the July 1 HBO broadcast, MacAvoy turned to Arizona's immigration law. Somehow, instead of a qualified expert, the only people that the fictional production team are able to find to advocate for the law are a ditzy beauty queen who claims that she didn't win a pageant because she agreed with the law, an extremely racist 'author' of self-published anti-immigration literature and a member of a citizen-run border-patrolling militia. [See video below. MP3 audio here.]
The media have been in a frenzy lately over the Sunday premiere of Aaron Sorkin’s latest show, The Newsroom. Some critics, such as Dan Rather, praised it as a "classic" worth of Citizen Kane. However, many have downplayed the left-wing, anti-American tone of the show's pilot, which includes one liberal lecture after another.
In the opening scene, new anchor Will MacAvoy (portrayed by actor Jeff Daniels) is asked by the moderator of a forum for journalism students at Northwestern about the reason that he does not expressly reveal his political leanings. When the moderator asks him if, “you feel the integrity of your broadcast would be compromised?” MacAvoy smugly says, “that sounds like a good answer, I’ll take it.” Seconds later, his tirade against America begins.
Former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, who ultimately resigned in disgrace for airing an attack piece on George W. Bush using phony documents, loves the new HBO show Newsroom and explained why in a review for Gawker. With no sense of irony, he praised, "I especially liked the emphasis on the necessity of having sources and doing real reporting (maybe not enough emphasis on this to satisfy me.)"
Rather added, "Also, the depiction of when to go with a story, when and what to lead with on a newscast is good." The journalist, who has been exiled to HD Net, went so far as to compare the show to Citizen Kane (a film often ranked as the greatest movie of all time). Rather gushed, "[Newsroom] has the potential to become a classic."
Aaron Sorkin leans so far to the left that even the liberal Entertainment Weekly magazine noticed it. In a June 24 online article entitled "10 Signs You're Watching an Aaron Sorkin Show" EW writer Darren Franich broke down the Sorkin formula and spotted a distinct liberal trend in items #3 "Boo! The Evil Corporate Person" and #5 "Conservative Characters Who Aren't Actually Very Conservative."
Under the 3rd category Franich wrote: "The shows do tend to feature one major antagonistic presence: The Evil Company Man, who always has an eye on the bottom line and all too often has the gall to censor the protagonists' brilliance." In the 5th category Franich noticed that Sarah Pauslon's character on Studio 60 was a Christian character that "had a complicated perspective on the question of gay marriage and generally didn't talk about her Christianity." In Sorkin's latest show for HBO, The Newsroom, Franich observed: "Will McAvoy is a registered Republican, but he's a hyper-moderate Republican who explicitly disagrees with the vast majority of contemporary right-wing causes."
Appearing as a guest on Friday's Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, actor Jeff Daniels - who stars as Will McAvoy in HBO's The Newsroom - admitted that he agrees with a now infamous speech delivered by his character - and written by liberal producer Aaron Sorkin - in which McAvoy rants that "America is not the greatest country in the world anymore."
After running a partial clip of the speech, host Piers Morgan praised the writing as a "great speech," and posed the question: "When you said it, did you believe it yourself?"
Sitting alongside Sorkin who was also a guest, Daniels recalled the first time he saw the line after the liberal producer wrote it: