As expected, ratings for HBO’s latest series The Newsroom were solid, drawing over 2 million viewers. Critics’ reviews of the series from Aaron Sorkin, best known as the mastermind behind The West Wing and, more recently, for winning the best adapted screenplay Oscar for The Social Network, have been mixed. Of the flaws highlighted in nearly all of the early reviews, lack of diversity was not one of them.
Now it’s no secret that most television newsrooms are predominantly white, but are they really as white as depicted on The Newsroom? Throughout the premiere of The Newsroom, the only sign of diversity (other than Slumdog Millionaire star Dev Patel) I spied was that of a black woman and a black man both picking up phones to work on the breaking story of the BP oil spill.
Label me “jaded” but I watch a fair amount of cable news programming and, while it is far from perfect, they aren’t quite as devoid of melanin as The Newsroom. Like seriously, could the reporter on the scene at least have been something other than white?
What’s even worse, however, is most of the reviews fail to recognize this slight. And Mr. Sorkin has been here before. When The West Wing debuted in 1999, the NAACP spoke up against the all-white cast and, by the third episode, Dulé Hill showed up as Charlie Young, the president’s personal aide. But, still, the most active storyline Hill’s Charlie Young received on The West Wing revolved around his interracial relationship with the president’s daughter.
Romance may exactly explain why there are no major black characters on The Newsroom yet. Reviews have pointed to the show’s idealism and nostalgia for a time when “the news” or “the truth” reigned supreme, but a lot of the tension driving the premiere episode is the unresolved romantic relationship the anchor William McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) has with his new executive producer MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer).
Another subplot involves a romantic relationship between the recent intern promoted to associate producer within minutes, Margaret “Maggie” Jordan (Alison Pill), and Will’s former executive producer Don (Thomas Sadoski). There’s also a hint that Maggie might hook up with MacKenzie’s right-hand man and senior producer Jim Harper. Which may be apropos since MacKenzie, despite being far from secure in her job, is the one who promoted her.
Technically, IMDB lists the three black characters, Gary (Chris Chalk), Kendra (Adina Porter) and the “teleprompter operator” (Blaise Brooks), as being around for most of the series. Gary and Kendra are signed up for the full ten episodes while the “teleprompter operator” has only nine. Perhaps Gary and Kendra will become more integrated into the drama as the show goes on.
Even if they do, however, it will be most likely on the periphery. I seriously doubt that their characters will have any meaty plot-lines of their own. There will be no revelation that one of their big sisters is a PhD like Jim’s. And neither one will have the opportunity to lie to their father about their love interest not being able to join them for dinner like Maggie.
What’s most interesting is that the Canadian version of The Newsroom, which debuted in 1996, tackled serious issues like diversity. There’s a provocative interview for a research position featuring a black lesbian where her desire to ski or not becomes a cornerstone of the interview. Later, the lead character George Findlay connects with a “pretty” white anchor over skiing for the same position.
In HBO’s version, most viewers will miss that Jim, who is white, following MacKenzie, who is also white, from job to job is how this thing works. They will not get that people in these positions tend to hire people they are comfortable with and that, far too often, that excludes people of color. In Canada, they spelled it out and indicated it as a problem. In HBO’s version, it doesn’t register at all.
Even the opening scene where Will, during a contentious debate on a college panel, suggests that there was a time when America “was the greatest country in the world” is the kind of the revisionist history that television regularly dishes out. “We stood up for what was right,” he says. “We fought for moral reasons.”
He makes these assertions as if the country as a whole believed Jim Crow to be inherently wrong during that time. He rattles off statistics about this country’s high incarceration rate today without ever mentioning race. He proclaims that “America is not the greatest country in the world anymore” as if it or any country, for that matter, ever was.
What has presumably kept this country going is the goal to form “a more perfect union.” It’s one that television does not share. Truth is, HBO’s The Newsroom will more than likely be granted another season and will probably attract a decent black audience. As with Girls, HBO’s other noteworthy series of 2012, there’s not much that’s groundbreaking in The Newsroom either. Unless, of course, television as usual is what defines “groundbreaking” these days.
Follow Ronda Racha Penrice on Twitter at @rondaracha