For a long time, if I were to catch even 20 seconds of The Shawshank Redemption I knew I was sitting down for the distance. Now it’s The Newsroom. I love me some Sorkin and this is a lovely tilt on the “we can do better” magic of The West Wing.
Beyond the crazy great banter, the direct address of some pretty core issues, Sloane the hot banker chick and that guy from Law and Order, The Newsroom landed me in the first episode with:
“America is not the greatest country. It sure used to be. We stood up for what was right. We fought for moral reasons. We passed laws, struck down laws – for moral reasons. We waged wars on poverty, not on poor people. We sacrificed, we cared about our neighbors, we put our money where our mouths were and we never beat our chest. We built great, big things, made ungodly technological advanced, explored the universe, cured diseases and we cultivated the world’s greatest artists AND the world’s greatest economy. We reached for the stars, acted like men. 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 didn’t scare so easy. We were able to be all these things and do all these things because we were informed… by great men, men who were revered. First step in solving any problem is recognizing there is one. America is not the greatest country in the world anymore.”