What everybody is talking about, the Newsroom's college rape storyline.

Courtesy of The Independent: 

The Newsroom has been accused of having a “women problem” before, but now Aaron Sorkin has come under fire for a rape storyline that implies male perpetrators are to be believed over female victims. 

The latest episode has been criticised for its portrayal of female rape victims after TV news producer Don Keefer said he felt morally obligated to believe the man’s side of the story because he had not yet been convicted of rape. 

The episode’ storyline followed a Princeton student who starts a website allowing women on campus to out their rapists after the city justice system failed to prosecute two fraternity members who she claimed raped her. 

The student is tracked down by the fictional news network ACN for a debate with her alleged attacker live on air. Don had also interviewed the man she claims raped her and when she asks him who he believes, the producer says he felt obliged to take the man’s side over hers.

This received quite a lot of backlash from all corners.

Including from a writer on the show who claims her misgivings about the segment were ignored, and that she was "kicked out" of the writer's room.

Sorkin himself responds here.

Actress Olivia Munn, who plays the character Sloan Sabbith on the show, also weighed in:  

“…The reality is that Sorkin writes things so that they can be talked about, and so we show both sides of it,” she said. “I think it was important to show what it’s like for women to be a rape victim, want to speak out, and then have somebody come in and say, ‘Hey don’t do that. That’s going to be bad for you.’ 

“Sorkin wasn’t saying ‘Don’t do that,'” Munn said. “He was saying ‘This is what happens.'” 

Personally I liked the episode. Partly because it left me conflicted, and not sure whose side I should take in the exchange between the Don Keefer character and the college student.

But that to me is the mark of great television.

I don't often watch shows that make me feel all warm and cuddly inside. I watch shows that make me think, piss me off, or make me grieve for the loss of a character that I have, against my better judgement, grown attached to. (Still miss you Beth.)

I think the show did everything that I would expect it would do with such a controversial subject.

And in the light of the Rolling Stone campus rape scandal, it could not have been more timely.

Perhaps the most important episode of The Newsroom that too many people did not see.

This was on the Newsroom last Sunday. Now the appropriate response to this segment is to sit stunned in front of your television and hope that this was all done for dramatic effect.

However as Mother Jones reported it is mostly all fact, and only a smattering of drama:

All of these things are predicted by the IPCC—I mean, not the permanent darkness thing, I don't think that's meant to be scientific. But yes, as we reported in May this year, Europe faces freshwater shortages; Asia can expect more severe flooding from extreme storms; North America will see increased heat waves and wildfires, which can cause death and damage to ecosystems and property. Especially in poor countries, diminished crop yields will likely lead to increased malnutrition, which already affects nearly 900 million people worldwide.

I know, scary right? Well good you should be scared.

The question is why is it taking us so long to recognize the monster lurking under our beds?

And a big part of that answer is that there has been a well funded concerted effort to make sure that we NEVER see that monster until it is much too late. Well according to evidence before us it is now much too late.

If the Newsroom took some dramatic liberties and  we do indeed still have time then we MUST do everything we can to keep those predictions from coming true right now.

And a big part of doing something is to keep oil company purchased Republican politicians out of positions of power. And after this last election that have more power than they have had in six years.

A fact that is bad for everybody who lives on this planet. Which let me remind you, is all of us.

Another fact to keep in mind is that the planet itself will survive our mistakes, It has in fact survived worse.

However we have already lost half of our wildlife in just the last 40 years. And there is no doubt that if we continue on in this way, that we are next.

The dangers of social media and why we should all be sad to see the end of HBO's "The Newsroom."

Click image to play video

I remember when this happened, and when I recoiled in horror at what these amateur sleuths had done in response to that terrible Boston Marathon bombing.

If you remember there was misinformation coming from all directions, much of it driven by the Right Wing mistrust of the government and their absolute certainty that the Obama administration was covering an attack by a known terrorist group.

Hell Glenn Beck was even sued for defamation after making up some insane conspiracy theories.

The Newsroom does something quite unique, and in my opinion quite necessary.

It not only holds puts the media on notice for its cowardice in reporting uncomfortable facts, or for cowering in the face of the conservative forces. It also holds up a mirror so that the public can see themselves revealed for their willingness to be poorly served by our politicians and our media, and how easily we allow ourselves to be manipulated by fear mongering or directed by our prejudices.

I for one will greatly miss what The Newsroom brings to the debate.

Guess what is coming back in November.

Is it just me or is anybody else watching current events and wonder, "Gee I wonder how they will handle that on the Newsroom?"

Sadly this is the final season so this will be the last time to wonder.

The premiere is November 9th, and personally I can hardly wait.

My heart is broken.

Courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter:  

The ACN News Night team is coming back for a third and final season. 

HBO has officially renewed the Jeff Daniels drama for a final installment, which is expected to air this fall. The news comes nearly six months after HBO programming president Michael Lombardo noted publicly that he'd be "shocked" if the series didn't return. The holdup has been creator Aaron Sorkin, who needed to pen the Steve Jobs film script before turning his attention back to Newsroom.

While I am glad the show is coming back (I never really doubted that it would) I am devastated that this will be its final season.  

I have been fairly unabashed in proclaiming my love for this brilliant program and had hoped to follow it for many years to come, reporting on important stories from the past and, in many cases, reporting them the way others in the REAL media failed to report them.

Some have criticized it for its portrayal of women, and its focus on clumsy romantic banter, but none of that bothered me a great deal.

Especially when it offered up scenes like this.

No having this amazing show go off the air for good is going to be a serious loss to political and news junkies. I doubt we will soon see anything to replace it.

This may have seemed like a controversial episode of the Newsroom last year, but I imagine that the majority of Americans would now agree with it 100%.

I imagine that most of us here at IM were cheering when the Jeff Daniels character, Will McAvoy, made those statements, however there was still an angry and energized minority of Americans who thought the comparison to the Taliban seemed unfair.

Somehow I have to imagine that that minority is even smaller in light of what is happening right now in Washington.

Eric Zuesse. an investigative historian has written a long and incredibly detailed explanation for how this American Taliban was able to take control over our government, as well as who funded them over at HuffPo.

Here is a portion I thought you might find interesting:

Sarah Palin had resigned her Governorship of Alaska, in order to become rich quickly via speaking tours and book deals; and on August 7th at her Facebook page she issued her "Statement on the Current Health Care Debate," and said that if Obama's health plan were to pass, people "will have to stand in front of Obama's 'death panel' so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their 'level of productivity in society,' whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil." (The phrases 'death panel' and 'level of productivity in society,' weren't in any proposed legislation, but came from Palin's own imagination.) The extremely conservative audience at aol.com was online-polled about this, "Do you agree with Palin's characterization of Obama's health plan as 'evil'?" and within a few days 200,000 respondents entered their opinions, 59% saying "Yes," and 41% "No." When asked "In general, what's your impression of Palin?" 50% said "Mostly positive," and 42% said "Mostly negative." Newt Gingrich on ABC TV's "This Week," on August 9th, was asked his opinion of Palin's Facebook statement, and Gingrich said he agreed with it, because Obama and the Democrats were planning "euthanasia" for old people. Despite ABC's strong Republican tilt, their George Stephanopoulos pointed out that there was nothing of that kind in any proposed legislation, but Gingrich went right on charging that this was the Democrats' intent. The thrust of Republicans and of the healthcare lobbyists and their "grass-roots" fronts was unmistakable: Obama's plan was to euthanize old people, and it was evil. Sometimes, major media were even compelled to correct misrepresentations of their own news reporting that was spread by Koch-allies.

The article of course is much more detailed, and I think everybody needs to read it. However I want to remind all of you that during the time mentioned above Sarah Palin was NOT the bedraggled used up skeletal harpy that we see today, Back then she was the Queen of the Tea Party and had tons of media attention paid to her every ridiculous utterance.

It was citizen journalists who eventually turned her into a laughingstock and rendered her all but impotent. And it is that same kind of grass roots reporting, and dissemination of information, that will ultimately prove to be the downfall of the Tea Party.

We can do this, but we have to be diligent, aggressive, and tireless.

Don't forget the other side, Breitbart, The Blaze, The Daily Caller, and others, all have the backing of big business to pay their bills and to help them push their agenda.

All I have is you.

(Oh, and coffee. I have coffee too.)

Jeff Daniels wins Emmy for the HBO hit the Newsroom. Hah! I told you guys!

Courtesy of the Hollywood Reporter: 

Jeff Daniels was shocked to win the Emmy for his portrayal of news anchor Will McAvoy on HBO's The Newsroom, beating out the likes of Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston and Mad Men's Jon Hamm. 

His first words out of his mouth when he went onstage to accept his award: "Well, crap!" 

Moments later, a reporter mentioned that he looked surprised: "Did I?" he asked when he got to the microphone. 

Daniels, who had never been nominated for an Emmy before this year, didn't have high expectations. 

"I've been neutral about this whole thing," he admitted. "I've been nominated a bunch of times -- Google it -- enough to kind of not lean toward it, not to hope too much. You're glad to be invited to the party. There are six of us nominated, there easily could've been 10 other guys who could've been where we are. It's a really crowded time in television. It's a great time to be in television. I felt the work stood up to what the other guys were doing, but we're all doing different things. It's anybody's game. I was happy to win but surprised because it could have been anyone."

I am actually a fan of many of the nominees for this Lead Actor Emmy, including "Breaking Bad's" Bryan Cranston, "Made Men's" Jon Hamm, and  the "House of Card's" Kevin Spacey, so for me it could have been any of them and I would have been pretty happy.

However it wasn't any of them, it was Daniels. And THAT is because the Newsroom is just about the best show on television right now, as demonstrated by this iconic scene.

My hope is that it will continue to attract viewers and build a huge audience so that we can enjoy more scenes like that in the future.

The Republicans are once again holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to force the President to delay the implementation of Obamacare. Here let the Newsroom's Sloan Sabbith explain why that is a dangerous plan.

(Caution this is HBO so you can expect at least one F word.)

And people wonder why I love this show.

As many of you will undoubtedly remember that the Republicans ONLY acquiesced when the President signed the Budget Control Act of 2011 which stipulated that if the two sides could not reach an agreement on the budget by late November then Sequestration would take affect. At the time they believed that despite their differences they were not quite THAT entrenched.

Unfortunately for all concerned, they were.

And during all of this political posturing and threatening Standard and Poor's downgraded our credit rating for the first time in history, dealing a blow to America's reputation and our standing in the world's economy.

Which is just what Sloan Sabbith is warning about in the above clip.

Yes I realize the scene was written after all of this had already happened, giving writer Aaron Sorkin the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but what is happening right now is ALSO taking place after all of that has already happened, which means that the Republicans and Congress should ALSO be benefiting from 20/20 hindsight, and yet it is increasingly looking as if it is all about to happen again.

What Sloan Sabbith is suggesting the American people do in that clip, is exactly what they, what we, should be doing right now.  I only hope that we can be heard over the rattling of their partisan swords.

Will McAvoy's brilliant defense of his Republicanism on the season finale of Newsroom.

Damn I'm going to miss this show!

Besides "Breaking Bad" I have another favorite show to watch tonight.

This is my "two glasses of wine" night. One for Breaking Bad and another to help me enjoy Newsroom.

I come from a long and proud line of raging alcoholics, however I am only an occasional drinker, so by the time we are half way through Newsroom I will be half in the bag.

Then, if the past is any indication, I will go to sleep with my glasses still on. Wake up at 3:15 AM to pee. Face the wrong direction while doing so, leaving a puddle next to my toilet. Stagger back to bed, stubbing my toe on the bed frame in the process. And then wake up in the morning trying to remember if I watched Newsroom or not last night. 

In other words it is going to be awesome.

P.S. By they way some of you will have already watched this episode by the time this posts. If you post any spoilers in the comment section this will be the result,"I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want. If you are looking for ransom, I can tell you I don't have money. But what I do have are a very particular set of skills; skills I have acquired over a very long career. Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you. If you (avoid ruining my show), that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you (do ruin my show), I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."

(Extra points if you can identify where this, somewhat modified, quote is taken from.)

(Oops I left a hint.)

Oh, I can hardly wait to watch this tonight.

Of course the show is still attracting criticism from those who simply don't get it. Like this jerk from the Rolling Stones:

So if you take a sick pleasure in The Newsroom, it's like getting off on hearing Dylan sing about misunderstood mobsters reading Nietzsche in prison. Of course, Dylan ended up turning to Jesus, so maybe in a couple of years we'll get a Sorkin dramedy called Church Night, starring Bill Pullman as the world's most intensely well-meaning Methodist pastor. 

The best joke on The Newsroom is the idea of cable news as a symbol of lost purity. It's tough to imagine anybody looking back on the golden days of CNN and thinking, "This was our finest hour." Ah, the innocent yesteryear of Headline News, back when staring up at the airport TV monitors while getting sloshed on margaritas at Chili's meant something. 

I was going to cancel my subscription to Rolling Stone in protest, but then I remembered that I have not had a subscription since the 80's. 

I like the show, and though it is not perfect, it is still a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

The brilliance of HBO's The Newsroom. "Sloan explains pictures."

Now if you are confused by that clip, Sloan, played by Olivia Munn, has just learned that intimate pictures that she took with her boyfriend have now found their way to the internet after she broke up with him.

What many viewers may not have known is that in this case art reflected life. Olivia Munn's life.

Last year intimate pictures of Munn were also distributed all over the internet. Only in her case they were not from a disgruntled ex-boyfriend, but the result of her phone being hacked, along with Christian Hendricks, Scarlett Johansson and others.

The pictures were scrawled with very explicit notes to her boyfriend and were very intimate, and undoubtedly she was horribly embarrassed to have them showing up in teenage inbox's all over the world. (Munn was a host of the video game program G4 and the subject of numerous teenage masturbatory fantasies.)

When the pictures came out she, just like her Newsroom character, also tried to play them off as fake at first. But that only made the internet detectives snoop harder, and eventually there was no question.

Now Munn only addressed the photos once that I know of, but after awhile people stopped asking her about it and she went on with her life.

Which brings me to the brilliance of Aaron Sorkin and the incredible courage of Olivia Munn.

Last night Munn's character Sloan went through all of the emotions, anger, frustration, shame, that she MUST have felt when those pictures of her came out last year. She got the chance to let the viewers see up close how painful it must be to have your privacy so callously invaded, and to have your personal sex life shared, judged, and mocked by people who have no right to even know about it.

Munn MUST have known that by revisiting the issue viewers would flock to the internet to once again find her pictures and gawk at them all over again. But she did it anyway.

But at least this time it was HER choice. SHE was in charge.

And what's more, in the show her character got to exact revenge on the person who victimized her. Something that she was never able to do in the real world.

I have long been a fan of Olivia Munn who I think is not only beautiful, but extremely talented. But now I more than admire her, I am in awe of her.

Now that you have read this, play that clip up top again, and you will be in awe as well. 

Damn this show is good.

Guess what's on tonight. (NSFW)

Here is one of my favorite parts from last week's episode just to whet your appetite.

"N-word head ranch?" I love that.

Ex-Romney aides claim that "Newsroom's" purely fictional account of a reporter's experiences on the Romney campaign bus did not happen.

"Hey, that didn't happen!"

On Sunday night's episode of the incredibly riveting HBO program "Newsroom" had character Jim Harper embedding himself on the Mitt Romney campaign bus and becoming so frustrated by his lack of access to the candidate and that all of his reporting was simply reading off a list of talking points provided by the campaign that he raises a stink and gets himself, and a few of his fellow reporters, kicked off of the bus.

This, ex-Romney aides contend, NEVER happened.

Courtesy of The Salt Lake Tribune:

A former 2012 Romney spokesman says that obviously pure fiction. 

"You all would have heard about that if it had happened" in the real campaign, says Ryan Williams, a Romney campaign spokesman who traveled with the former Massachusetts governor. The show "doesn't seem to be very close to the truth," he adds.

Well thank goodness they cleared up the fact that a fictional character's experiences as depicted on a fictional show were in fact fictional.

Gee I simply cannot understand how the Romney campaign managed to lose that election. 

However on a more serious note, the Harper character's frustration about the talking points and limited access to the candidate were well documented by reporters during the actual campaign. So THAT part, you know the part that was the point of the fictional interpretation, WAS based in fact.

Finally my long tortuous wait is over. Tonight there will be Newsroom!

Courtesy of The Taunton Daily Gazette: 

Aaron Sorkin is fast becoming a master of second chances. When he was booted from his Emmy-winning creation “The West Wing,” after getting caught with his nose too deep in a bag of cocaine, he sobered up and won an Oscar for “The Social Network.” 

But that turnaround is nothing compared to what he’s done to reverse the fortunes of his much-ballyhooed HBO series, “The Newsroom.” Ripped by critics and shunned by viewers, the show, about a fictional cable news network, appeared headed for cancellation due to universal disinterest shortly after it premiered last summer. 

If not for Sorkin’s considerable clout – he also wrote the smash hits “An American President” and “A Few Good Men” – that’s exactly where “The Newsroom” would have ended up. Yet even with that valuable marker in hand, just about everyone in Hollywood laughed when HBO renewed the series after it picked up a pair of inexplicable Golden Globe nominations, one for star Jeff Daniels and the other for best series. 

But once those cynics get a gander at the first four episodes of the new season, they will be picking up their jaws and praising how righteously good the show has become in its second coming. 

Damn I have been jonesing hard for the return of this show. And finally tonight my wait is over. 

Here is a little preview to further whet your appetite.

Deleted scene from the Newsroom Season One.

I can hardly wait for the return of this show.

And next week, on June 11th, my long wait will finally come to an end. (Oops, make that June July 14th.)

2nd Newsroom tease. Oh, now they're just messing with me.

The idea of this show covering the Romney campaign is incredibly tantalizing.

I am not sure I can wait until July 14th.

Though I don't really see an alternative to waiting, so I guess that's a silly thing to say.

Can it be July already?

I swear, and don't think I'm crazy, whenever anything huge breaks in the news, whether it be the Boston bombing, a big election, or this battle over gun legislation, I always imagine how Will McAvoy will report on it.

I know, he is only a TV character. But still, is there ANYBODY on television that has given us the straight poop the way that he did in this famous scene?

Come on July, I am not a patient man.

Young Republicans National Policy Chairman demonstrates just how out of touch they are by getting into a Twitter battle with a fake news anchor.

So over the weekend THIS was tweeted:

When will the media stop talking about the politically irrelevant Sarah Palin at CPAC? I'm devoting the hour to that topic tonight!
— Will McAvoy (@WillMcAvoy_ACN) March 16, 2013

Now if you are constant visitor to this blog, or a fan of HBO, you already know what is wrong with this tweet.

Sadly there are some who are apparently neither, such as Jason B. Whitman the Young Republicans National Policy Chairman, who became incensed and tweeted this in response.

 My favorite part of this is that this guy notified Sarah Palin that he was standing up for her honor against this asshat who is going to dedicate "an entire hour" to her appearance at CPAC.

However the problem, of course, is that this is a parody twitter account using Will McAvoy's name.

But what is even a BIGGER problem is that Will McAvoy himself ONLY exists in the  world of HBO where he is a character in the series Newsroom, played by the incredibly talented Jeff Daniels.

So essentially this Jason B. Whitman guy was arguing with a guy, pretending to be a fake journalist, on a fake news channel, in an HBO series, on cable television.

I understand that after he was notified that he was making a fool of himself, he deleted the tweet.

Too late.

P.S. Yes I recognize that I am sort of living in a glass house on this topic since I posted that fake Will Ferrell tweet yesterday. But at least Will Farrell is a real person, living in the real world, and when I was made aware I manned up and admitted my mistake. I did not simply delete the evidence.

By the way if there are any of you still out there who do NOT yet know about Will McAvoy, and one of my all time favorite HBO series, let me enlighten you.

The Daily Show investigates investigative investigators.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Hey ANYTIME you have a Daily Show "correspondent" discussing the lack of good investigative journalism at CNN with the "news anchor" from HBO's the Newsroom, you KNOW I am posting that bad boy.

Seriously WHY do I have to wait until the summer to see this show back on the air?