ABSTRACT
McHALE:A nightly newscast that informs a debate worthy of a great nation. Civility, respect, and a return to what's important. The death of bitchiness, the death of gossip and voyeurism. Speaking truth to stupid. No demographic sweet spot. McHale's earnest speech, while setting the proselytizing tone for the entire series, summarizes what might be the overarching metaphor as well for Sorkin's career. Episode '5/1', the seventh of Aaron Sorkin's TV series The Newsroom, begins at a party celebrating the one-year-and-one-week anniversary of 'News Night 2.0', the fictional show-within-a-show set in the recent past of New York City. By incorporating this actual news footage in the context of his telefictional newsroom, Sorkin effectively hijacks viewer's feelings about September 11 by way of bin Laden's death, transferring their presumed affective engagement with past events of national tragedy, an engagement enacted and determined through its many-layered media exposure, to the present world of the show's characters.
