Don't Make a Scene: The Newsroom

The Story: I wanted to run this last July 4th, but it was too soon.

And in light of what we're learning from the House Select Committee on January 6th, now is the time.

 

This video—taken from HBO's "The Newsroom"—is very popular on YouTube. It's been seen many tens of millions of times (conservatively)...in several iterations—not counting those that have already been taken down, and also has quite a presence on other streaming sites. It struck a chord with viewers, even when it premiered on June 24, 2012, as with statistics, Aaron Sorkin had his milquetoast Republican news anchor go off on a tear about America failing in its mission to form "a more perfect union," by going through a statistical analysis. 7th in literacy? Depending on what you read (if you can read) it can either be 7th or 125th. 31st in math. 20th in science (which is both a surprise and not a surprise after the COVID debacle). 40th in life expectancy. Infant mortality? 5.4 death per thousand births—50th. You get the idea; there are lies, damn lies and then there are statistics. But, we're not doing great. We do lead in those three categories mentioned (incarcerated people per capita, percentage of people who believe in angels—72% as of 2016, and defense spending). And obesity. We lead in obesity.

Speaking of lies and damn lies—Donald Trump. A little less than three years after this episode of "The Newsroom" premiered, he wanted to get a raise from producer Mark Burnett for "The Celebrity Apprentice" and so—according to Howard Stern—he decided to run for president "for the publicity." And, although Aaron Sorkin may want to throw his thesaurus out a window to consider it, I'm betting this little scene led "the Trump team" to choose their now famous campaign slogan before he descended the Trump escalator (to a bought crowd) to announce that he would "Make America Great Again."

Oh, the Trumpengruppen got the emotion right—the frustration, the anger, the hurt pride and angst—but they didn't listen to the words of this speech. To. The. Words. The Will McAvoy character gives us problems; Trump played "the blame game." And we gave the keys to the kingdom to the worst chest-beater in the world—Donald J. Thump (the "J" stands for "jenius")—who saw this (and probably didn't listen to the whole thing because his name isn't mentioned in it) and found his "hook" to hoodwink us.

 

But, never was mentioned exactly when America was great. What period of our history? It probably wasn't mentioned because you can't look at a decade of American history without finding something terrible about it. The goal is to make (as the founders said) "a more perfect Union," which implies (of course) that it isn't perfect, that it has flaws and it is the business of the country to make it better. To improve it. To make it "more perfect." It's a process and it's never fast enough and whatever changes we make towards that goal are going to piss somebody off. But, there's always going to be pissed off people. Just like the only thing constant is change.

 

"Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be cool if we did?"

 

That's what Donald J. Trump suggested to Vice President Mike Pence when the Veep refused the suggestion that he alone throw out the electoral votes of six states in order to ensure a victory for The President, despite the many arguments, legal and statistically, that he lost.

 

But, with the "wouldn't it be cool" question, Trump made it clear when he thought America was great. It was when the reins of the country weren't controlled by the people, but in the hands of one man. In his mind, America was great...when it was ruled by a king.

 

Now, "the red, white, and blue" stands for red states, blue states and white supremacists—with their historically discriminating and unstable definition of specifically what "white" means.

 

Enough?* 

 

The Set-Up: Atlantis Cable News anchorman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels)—"the Jay Leno of anchors"—is suffering through a university forum (at Northwestern) where he's caught between two political pundits, one conservative and one liberal. Like his on-air persona of late, he is glib, bored and going through the motions. And distracted. Caught off guard by something in the audience...and—as he will make an excuse when this rant goes viral—maybe suffering from a reaction to some anti-vertigo medication. Whatever. Things are going to get serious.The moderator asked for "a human moment?" He's going to get it.

Action.

MODERATOR Are you willing to say here tonight whether you lean right or left? 

WILL I’ve voted for candidates run by both major parties. 

MODERATOR Let’s move on to the next question. 

MODERATOR Go ahead.  

JENNY Hi. My name is Jenny. I’m a sophomore, and this is for all three of you. 

JENNY Can you say in one sentence or less... 

JENNY Um, you know what I mean. 

JENNY Can you say why America is the greatest country in the world? 

SHARON Diversity and opportunity.

MODERATOR Lewis?

LEWIS Freedom and freedom... so let's keep it that way.

MODERATOR Will?

WILL McAVOY The New York Jets.

MODERATOR No, I'm going to hold you to an answer on that. 

MODERATOR What makes America the greatest country in the world?

WILL Well,

WILL Lewis and Sharon said it. Diversity and opportunity and freedom and freedom.

MODERATOR I'm not letting you go back to the airport...

MODERATOR ... without answering the question.

WILL Well, our Constitution is a masterpiece. James Madison was a genius. The Declaration of Independence is, for me, the single greatest piece of American writing...

[Professor keeps staring]

WILL You don't look satisfied.

MODERATOR One's a set of laws and the other's a declaration of war. I want a human moment from you... 

MODERATOR What about the people? Why is America...

WILL It's not the greatest country in the world, professor, that's my answer.

MODERATOR [pause] You're saying— 

WILL Yes.  

MODERATOR Let's talk about—

WILL Fine. 

WILL[to the liberal panelist] Sharon, the NEA is a loser. Yeah, it accounts for a penny out of our paychecks, 

WILL but he [gesturing to the conservative panelist] gets to hit you with it anytime he wants. It doesn't cost money, it costs votes. It costs airtime and column inches. 

WILL You know why people don't like liberals? Because they lose. 

WILL If liberals are so fuckin' smart, how come they lose so GODDAM ALWAYS! 

SHARON Hey!

WILL  And [to the conservative panelist] with a straight face, 

WILL  ...you're going to tell students that America's so star-spangled awesome that we're the only ones in the world who have freedom? 

WILL Canada has freedom, Japan has freedom, the UK, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, 

WILL Australia, Belgium has freedom. 

WILL Two hundred seven sovereign states in the world, like 180 of them have freedom.

MODERATOR All right...

WILL And you—sorority girl—yeah—

WILL just in case you accidentally wander into a voting booth one day, 

WILL there are some things you should know, and one of them is that there is absolutely no evidence to support the statement that we're the greatest country in the world. 

WILL We're seventh in literacy, twenty-seventh in 

WILL ...math, twenty-second in science, 

WILL forty-ninth in life expectancy, 

WILL 178th in infant mortality, 

WILL ...third in median household income, number four in labor force, and number four in exports. We lead the world... 

WILL ...in only three categories: number of incarcerated citizens 

WILL ...per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, 

WILL ...and defense spending, where we spend more than the next twenty-six countries combined, 

WILL ...twenty-five of whom are allies. None of this is the fault of a 20-year-old college student, 

WILL ...but you, nonetheless, are without a doubt, a member of the 

WILL ...WORST-period-GENERATION-period-EVER-period, so when you...

WILL ...ask what makes us the greatest country in the world, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about?! 

WILL Yosemite?!!! 

WILL We sure used to be. 

WILL We stood up for what was right! We fought for moral reasons, we passed and struck down laws for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not poor people. 

WILL We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were, and we never beat our chest. 

WILL We built great big things, made ungodly technological advances, explored the universe, cured diseases, and cultivated the world's greatest artists and the world's greatest economy. 

WILL We reached for the stars, and we acted like men. 

WILL We aspired to intelligence; we didn't belittle it; it didn't make us feel inferior. We didn't identify ourselves by who we voted for in the last election, and we...

WILL —gosh—

WILL ...we didn't scare so easy. 

WILL And we were able to be all these things and do all these things... 

WILL ...because we were informed. 

WILL By great men, men who were revered. 

WILL The first step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one—

WILL America is not the greatest country in the world anymore. 

WILL [to moderator] Enough?

The Newsroom (Pilot: "We Just Decided To")

Words by Aaron Sorkin

Pictures by Barry Ackroyd and Greg Mottola

"The Newsroom" (All twenty-five episodes of it) are available on DVD and Blu-Ray from Warner Home Video.

 

 

 

Oh. And there was a sequel:

* Okay, let's look on the bright side: We just survived (most of us) the biggest single cause of death (COVID-19) ever in the history of the U.S.—1.01 million deaths as of this writing, and the largest drop in points of the U.S. Stock Market—2, 997.10 points on March 16, 2020—which few Americans even remember.