Aaron Sorkin’s HBO series The Newsroom is a show that presented news in a truthful manner, though the show was fictional. Some of the principles and philosophies of the show apply too much to life in America now. The Newsroom was about the staff of the fictional news show News Night with Will McAvoy and the daily trials that they faced in doing news broadcasts, similar to that of See It Now  with Edward R. Murrow.

Some of the shows fictional ideas seem to hold up for real life events and may have even been of some help during certain areas of politics. One example is demonstrated in season one when the show is gearing up to present a new debate format for the RNC (Republican National Committee). The format is that each candidate can make an opening statement if they want, but the host of the debate questions a candidate until he/she has finished.

This method would basically have been a way for the American electorate to see through the lies, false promises and exaggerated claims that candidates would provide. One reason that this was a big deal for the staff of the show was to make sure that candidates would stop shouting nonsense, and so people could see the Tea Party Republicans for what The Newsroom described at the end of season one, “The American Taliban.” 

Something more suiting would also be the idea of considering them “radical extremist Republicans,” seeing as how this is true. Much of what Republicans uphold as values are ultra conservative and do not fit with the direction and liberalism of America. One major example is the fact that Vice-President Mike Pence supports gay conversion therapy.

Gay conversion therapy, which was outlawed in New York State last year goes back to the idea that being gay isn’t something that you’re born with, when that is not necessarily true. Another idea that The Newsroom was able to bring about and shocked many people with was the surprising statistics of why America isn’t the greatest country in the world.

Link to Will McAvoy’s speech on America: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q49NOyJ8fNA

After hearing this speech the first time I did some research and found that most of this is true. America hasn’t been the greatest country in the world for a while, but in some way I believe that people knew this. Being 19 trillion dollars in debt, and having a president that is not so much a politician as a businessman is not helping us either.

Also this speech from The Newsroom demonstrates that Donald Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is not wrong. In fact he is right that America can be made better, but the way he’s doing it makes us lose some if not all glory we had, between defunding Planned Parenthood, the proposed travel ban, and beginning construction of the wall.

Doing these are causing America to take steps in the wrong direction of progress. The Newsroom showed great philosophies that can be applied to the way Donald Trump runs this country swiftly into the ground, as well as some of the steps that could have prevented bad candidates from even running for President.

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