For the first three episodes of the season, I wasn’t hate-watching The Newsroom — I was watching it. Many of the show’s early, laughably obvious problems had been fixed. Maggie was no longer a ditz with the brain of a baby; she was a competent reporter who pulled a fast one on Toby from The Office. Neal was given a sense of purpose after getting a file containing 27,000 stolen government documents. And Jim, well, Jim’s actually still the worst, a snobby crusader against bloggity bloggers with their evil blogging. But the last two episodes have ruined any semblance of goodwill the first half of the show’s third and final season earned.
Last week’s “Contempt” was all about how the Internet is ruining everything, or something, while last night’s “Oh Shenandoah” was as timely as it was awful. Basically, Charlie demands that Don visit a female student (played by Selina Meyer’s daughter!) at Princeton who says she had been raped. Why her, in particular? Because she created a website that allows women to publicly identify the men who sexually abused them, and her story will bring in ratings. But Don tells her to refuse to participate in an on-air debate with the guy she claims raped her, not because that’s seriously f*cked up but because her website could be used to make false allegations.
Here’s what the New Yorker’s Emily Nussbaum had to say:
Look, The Newsroom was never going to be my favorite series, but I didn’t expect it to make my head blow off, all over again, after all these years of peaceful hate-watching. Don’s right, of course: a public debate about an alleged rape would be a nightmare. Anonymous accusations are risky and sometimes women lie about rape (Hell, people lie about everything). But on a show dedicated to fantasy journalism, Sorkin’s stand-in doesn’t lobby for more incisive coverage of sexual violence or for a responsible way to tell graphic stories without getting off on the horrible details or for innovative investigations that could pressure a corrupt, ass-covering system to do better. Instead, he argues that the idealistic thing to do is not to believe her story. Don’s fighting for no coverage: he’s so identified with falsely accused men and so focused on his sorrowful, courtly discomfort that, mainly, he just wants the issue to go away. And Don is our hero! (Via)
Don is ostensibly worried about Mary’s website and the danger of anonymous accusations. So he wants Mary to turn down the ACN interview–in which she’s not only not making an anonymous accusation but in which the accused will have the chance to defend himself. This is literally the opposite of the criticism of the Rolling Stone story–that the magazine’s reporter did not speak to any of the accused gang-rapists, or attempt to track them down, or even explain what it did or did not do about them. ACN has done all that, and Don wants to scuttle the story anyway, because he doesn’t like the website. Because “there’s no way” some woman won’t use it to make a false rape accusation. Because think of the theoretical Stanford Medical School applications! (Via)
But most damning of all were these tweets from Alena Smith, a Newsroom staff writer.
https://twitter.com/internetalena/status/541801655897817088
https://twitter.com/internetalena/status/541802313799585793
https://twitter.com/internetalena/status/541802481869524993
https://twitter.com/internetalena/status/541802772086001664
The Newsroom series finale airs next week. The series will not be missed.
