Over the past decade,
people on every side of the political spectrum have been criticizing the media
in all its forms. They all seem to agree that its biased (though towards which
side depends on which side you’re on), they all argue it’s not told us what we
need to know, they all argue that objectivity has vanished from the press, they
all argue that the media is controlling what stories you’re telling. All of
them say the media is failing us.
All of these points
of view have merit. But almost all of them seem to conveniently neglect something
so fundamental that they are clearly missing the point. All of us may say we
want a free press, but over the last twenty years they all have seem to forget that
journalism is at its core a business and always has been. While the internet
has done damage to financial productivity of countless industries, by far the
most important one has been journalism.
The larger problem is
that most of these commentators – particularly the younger ones – have blinded
themselves to this simple fact. They will argue that capitalism is destroying everything
but seem incapable of understanding that journalism is a business like
everything else, and like every business, the people in it are only allowed to
do their work if there is enough revenue being produced to keep the lights on.
The fact that so many successful print publications have been going under these
days does nothing to affect so many of people’s point of views: there are
writers on this site who seem to think that the only real way to get news is
through for the internet even if it means sacrificing things like objectivity
or in-depth coverage.
Now you can argue
that so much of popular culture – books, TV, film – has gone out of its way to
propound the idea that journalism is a noble calling and yet not reflect the reality of the business. The
thing is, in the last twenty years, the best films and television have gone out
of the way to make it very clear that
journalism and business always have gone hand-in-hand and that the best work in
one can only succeed because of the largesse of the other. This has been clear most
obviously in ABC’s drama Alaska Daily in which creator Tom McCarthy has
gone out of his way to show just how dependent print journalism in particular
is on the largesse of its owners – and how the bottom line will almost always
have an effect on what the stories that get told.
Where popular culture
has not done nearly as good a job is portraying how much cable and television
news are affected by the bottom-line as well. At the end of the day far too
many series that have been set in the world of broadcast and cable journalism refuse
to acknowledge the role that money plays in it. At best, it is seen as a necessary
evil; at worst, something that gets in the way of intrepid reporters from doing
actual reporting.
I think the best way
to explain how this works would be to use a superb example of a movie that tells
a brilliant story about the realities of journalism and how business and
reporting should work together and a television series that goes out of its way
to argue that never the twain should meet. I will start with the movie.
2017’s The Post was
another in a long line of recent masterpieces by Steven Spielberg. I think the
fact that because we have treated Spielberg, Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep for
granted for so long, and that the movie seemed so obviously Oscar bait actually
worked against when it came to recognition by the Oscars that year. It was
superbly directed and acted, not just by Streep and Hanks but by the entire
cast, particularly Bob Odenkirk and Sarah Paulson, and told a story that we
actually hadn’t heard before but really should have – how the Pentagon Papers
were made public, the story of Daniel Ellsberg and the landmark Supreme Court
case that was the first domino that led to the downfall of Richard Nixon. There
are countless virtues to this film that make it a triumph on every level, but the
one that is the most pertinent is how it relates to the measure of journalism
as a business and how it has to work in regard to politics.
When the film opens
in 1971, the Washington Post may very well be in the nation’s capital but its little
more than a ‘local paper’. The film begins with Ben Bradlee (Hanks) struggling
to find a way for his reporters to cover Julie Nixon’s wedding, while owner Katherine
Graham (Streep) is attending a stockholder’s meeting in which the Post is about
to go public. Graham is considered little more than a figurehead since the
death of her husband. The Post is hated by the Nixon White House more because
of its friendly relationship with the ‘Georgetown Elite’ rather than in-depth
reporting; at the start of the movie, the entire world is fixated on the New
York Times, and its clear that where the sun rises and sets.
When an intrepid
reporter (Odenkirk) realizes that the man behind leaking the papers to the
Times is Daniel Ellsberg (Matthew Rhys) he manages to track him down and
convinces him to give him the papers. Ellsberg makes it very clear how
dangerous this could be for the Post – there’s already an injunction against
the Times for publishing it and if they do the same, they will similarly be in
the crosshairs.
Graham when she learns
about this is concerned and Bradlee has to convince her to publish by explaining
that the relationship between the press and politicians has to change. He relates
a story about Jackie Kennedy coming back to Dallas after the assassination of
her husband and when he came to comfort her, she made clear that nothing that
he saw could see print. He admits being hurt because he thought they were
friends. Now he realizes this had to change and that this story will do so.
Through the movie, Bradlee
handles the revelations of the Papers while Graham must handle the potential
fallout from the business side. Through conversations with the board of
trustees, which include former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, she is
told in no uncertain terms that if they follow through with this, the fallout will
almost certainly be devastating. The attorneys representing the paper essentially
couch their terms in regard to publication to Bradlee and his fellow journalists,
and both say variations on the same thing: if they follow through with this, the
best case scenario is they all lose their jobs and might never be able to work
again – the worst case is possibly prison.
One of the reasons I
think The Post works better than far too many movies and TV shows about
journalism – fictional or real – is that it makes very clear that the reporters
can only do their jobs as long as the lights stay on. Before the story goes to
press, everyone in the newsroom is terrified about their future once its published.
It is only because Graham has decided that in this case the truth is more
important than economics that the story goes public.
Many of the moments
in the end are basically that of measured triumph. What maybe the most
important one in this context is when Bradlee walks in Graham’s office with a
paper bag, empties it out, and shows newspaper after newspaper showing coverage
of the story. “We’re not a local paper anymore!” Bradlee says in triumph.
Buried under the triumph of history is that Graham’s gamble has paid off for the
paper economically: because the Washington Post has published this story, they now
rank with the Times as the gold standard of journalism – and as a result, will
have the freedom to kind of stories like this more often. (The movie ends with
Graham saying she hopes we don’t have to go anything like this again soon,
followed by a recording of Nixon making discussions to go after the Post – and the
awareness that the break-in at the Watergate is not that much in the future.)
The Post is probably the best
example in recent years of the balance that reporting and business have to
strike – and there’s a very good chance that almost major review of it may have
missed that particular point when they were focused on the director and
performers. Those who question the integrity of ‘mainstream media’ like The Washington
Post these days seem either not to know or care about this line.
There have been a few
series in recent years that have tried to look at the state of TV journalism. I
have yet to watch The Morning Show so I can’t testify to how good a job
it does, but the reviews have done little to convince me its truly trying that
hard. Indeed, many of the early reviews compared it to another major show that
had basically the same subject – and honestly, I can’t think of a worse example
then the one they chose.
Before I get into the
reasons why, a lead-up. When The West Wing was on the air, it probably
succeeded far more due to the level of its writing and performances than its
tone. By the time it debuted in the fall of 1999, the idealism and optimism
that made up so much work that Aaron Sorkin was a part of was becoming passe
compared to the cynicism and darkness of what HBO was showing on the air in The
Sopranos. The longer The West Wing stayed on the air, the more
unrealistic it seemed in that tone of idealism, particularly compared to other
series such as 24,Six Feet Under and The Shield.
Studio 60 on the
Sunset Strip was
regarded harshly at the time and I still consider it a massive disaster, but at
the end of the day I consider it one not so much because of Sorkin’s idealism
but his inability to make any part of the subject matter work. In retrospect,
perhaps the biggest warning sign of what was to come was Amanda Peet’s
determination to lean away from sensational ratings grabbing TV to high-brow
television; at the time, networks could make the argument there was a place for
him, but it was unrealistic for a network executive to have.
I thought in the
interim between Studio 60’s cancellation and the eventual debut of The
Newsroom that Sorkin was beginning to embrace the realities of the modern
world, given the nature of the three critical and economic successes of the
films he ended up writing during this interval. Charlie Wilson’s War told
the truth about the end of the Cold War by Afghanistan, but made sure in its
ending to make clear how badly we’d f—ed the endgame, The Social Network very
realistically showed how a network about making friends was made by a man so
unemotional and petty that at the end, you find yourself wondering if he did to
prove he was better the girl who broke up with him (I may analyze this film and
a later date), and Moneyball showed us very clearly how the lack of
money made certain realities in professional baseball necessary. All of these
films showed Sorkin’s usual crispness with dialogue and wit with a far more biting
cynicism and darkness. One would
naturally have thought, given the nature of journalism and politics at the
time, Sorkin would be more than willing to embrace that idea and make it
entertaining. Instead, Sorkin started by doubling down on idealism in the
opening minutes and kept harping as loud as he could on that idea throughout
the run of The Newsroom.
I will confess for
most of the run of the series, I did everything I could to see the good in it
the series. I tried my hardest to focus on the exceptional level of so many of
the performances from Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterston, Chris Messina, and so many
more that it didn’t so much cloud my
judgment as it did completely blind me to the complete wreckage it was All the
flaws that had been present in all of Sorkin’s previous series – his inability
to create believable romances, his utter
determination to stick to the real world no matter how much it hurt the series, and by far, the unabashed idealism in so many
people, particularly the old white male characters – damaged every aspect of
the series that could have worked. Everything that had been subtle and
lighthearted in every aspect of The West Wing – the cultural references,
his characters ability to explain complicated stories simply – kept landing
over and over with a thud. And any attempt to try and correct these ideas was
based on the premise that its core is fundamentally flawed.
From the beginning of
the series, Charlie Skinner (Waterston) and news producer Mackenzie McHale –
seriously why that name (Emily Mortimer) go out of their way to convince popular
newsman Will MacAvoy to abandon his successful format of news coverage to
establish what they call ‘real journalism – hard hitting news coverage’. The
overall idea is that this somehow will be a benefit to America.
There are far too
many problems with this whole concept to list, but I think the easiest way to
make them clear is to involve two very different stories. In the third episode,
Charlie Skinner is having a long
conversation with Reese Lansing, the head of the network while Leona Lansing
(Jane Fonda, the only really good thing about the entire series) the owner of
the corporation that owns it, sits silently. At the end of the episode, Reese leaves
the room and Charlie and Leona have it out. Leona makes it very clear that the coverage
of the Tea Party during the 2010 midterms have done serious harm to her company’s
business interest. She clearly understands the possible fallout of the
election, but she has to be a realist: three of the more recent winners in the
Midterms now sit on the Commerce Committee. Skinner listens to this and tries
to explain in a different way and Leona lays out reality: the news division of
AWN (the business that owns the network) contributes a total of 3% to the
annual corporate income. “So stop pretending this is a meeting between equals!”
In the next few
minutes, Leona makes it very clear that she will fire Will if he doesn’t hold
it in. She even goes so far as to tell Charlie how and why she will do it.
Charlie takes this in, and then doesn’t tell Will about it until weeks later when
the consequences to his reputation are beginning to become threatening. For the
remainder of the season, Leona is basically considered the enemy and the
network is trying to find a way to defeat her.
The viewer, naturally,
is supposed to see Leona Lansing as the evil corporate overlord responsible for
keeping these gosh-darn earnest journalists from doing their job. What this
leaves out in this story – and is in fact basically ignored throughout the
series – is the idea that money should have anything to do with journalism in
the first place and that in fact Will and everyone else only have their jobs
because of people like Leona. One could
view Leona Lansing as a mirror image of Katharine Graham in this context, who
has to make hard business decisions for the good of her company. But Sorkin’s
conclusion is the opposite of Spielberg
and the writers of The Post - its
that the decision should always be about integrity first regardless of the
bottom line. Even the fact that Will’s series is declining in ratings throughout
the series is considering fundamentally fault of the way the business must work
rather than how Sorkin thinks it should.
There are several
times this inanity played out but perhaps never more ludicrously during the final
episodes of the first season. During two of the last three episodes, the staff
of the show (gasps) demeans itself by covering sensationalist stories like that
of Anthony Weiner’s sexting scandal and the saga of Casey Anthony. Now, why are
they doing this you might ask? To build up their ratings so that they can get a
Presidential Debate. Not those debates you get on Fox News and CNN, but actual
debates where the moderator (Will) forces the candidates to answer the
questions that are asked and not stop asking them until they give a ‘real
answer.’ Two episodes are spent on this, and representatives of the RNC show
up, see a rehearsal of this debate and are naturally repulsed. A member of the
RNC argues for it, and is shouted down and the debate never happens., One of
the last moments of the episode shows footage of a CNN Republican debate where
Wolf Blitzen is asking a typically inane question while Charlie looks on in
disgust.
There are just so
many problems with this whole concept, but I’ll settle on the ultimate reason:
the idea of the debate. If there ever was reason where Sorkin’s misplaced idealism
was on display its here, because the structure would have never worked now,
then or ten years earlier. There are three obvious reasons:
1. It argues that
somehow Americans change their minds
based on a candidate’s debate
performance. This has always been someone questionable in the era of primary
debates. Generally it has always been the idea that a blunder hurts you and a
good performances doesn’t help. (I think this was true even before the 2016 election
cycle.)
2. It argues that
Americans think the positions politicians take in public are real ones and will
be shocked if they learn the contradictions. I’m pretty sure the only debates
that did were on The West Wing.
3. Most importantly, it truly believes that this
kind of debate would attract any more attention than any of the more ‘superficial’
ones. As I argued in a separate article, Americans only care about politics
relative to the amount of time they’d willingly spend on it. I will never be
convinced anyone who watch this debate or any other ahead, of say, the current
week episode of Mad Men (a Peak TV series going on during the era of
this prospective debate)
That’s the real
problem with Sorkin’s idealism that’s on display in The Newsroom and honestly
its one that too many pundits, media critics and young people make about television
and so much else. Journalism is a business. Like all businesses, it is built on
the concept of getting as many people to read papers or watch the network they are
on. Sorkin’s idealism seems to be against the model of business. At one point
in an episode where so much coverage is being devoted to Casey Anthony, Sloane
Sabbeth, an economist begs Mac that they have to cover the debt ceiling crisis
because she honestly believes that if they focus all their energy on it, the
viewers will get up off their ass and call their congressman who will make them
resolve the crisis. That any character working in a newsroom even on a TV
series honestly believes that is a real possibility in any America we live
in is absurd because it believes in the good-will of the politicians (which
even in 2011 was hopeless naïve) and the willing participation of any consumer
of journalism. No one then or today would dare to make the suggestion that if
the public were to do this, their elected officials would take them seriously.
It goes against the nature of how politics works today.
And this idealism
runs ahead the nature of how little interest anyone outside the bubble of
politics or political journalism really is. Like I said, this is complicated
and we don’t have the free time to try and get it. Any writer other than Sorkin
would have written a scene where Sloane and Will start discussing the debt-ceiling
crisis – and show the viewer changing the channel to CNN’s coverage of Casey Anthony
or Anthony Weiner. It’s possible that all of the media pundits may want to cover
real hard-hitting stories but they are in a business and they have to tell the
stories that sell.
A free press is not – and never has been –
free. There are a lot of problems with every aspect of today’s media, but
before we take a swing at the problems with them all those who dump on it have
to accept that in order to tell any story at all, people have to be willing to
pay for it in some way. And given that so many other people seem to have an issue
paying for any consumption of other forms of entertainment, I have little doubt
that they’ll be willing to agree to that.
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