Will McAvoy Calls out News Organizations in News Night
From The Newsroom (Season 1, Episode 3, “The 112th Congress”)
Categories:
Run time: 2:27
Clip Description: Will McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels, delivers a rebuke of news companies in News Night for sensationalizing news.
American Politics Concepts Discussed/Connected To: This clip connects to the importance surrounding the freedom of the press and how media plays into the political environment.
Possible Uses in Classroom: This clip would work well in discussions of freedom of the press, responsibility of the press, and media influence in politics.
Discussion Questions
- McAvoy’s charge is that the press presents two unequal claims as equally credible. When is giving both sides a professional obligation, and when is it a distortion? Notice that answering this requires someone to decide which claims are unequal — who should that be, and what stops them being wrong?
- The First Amendment protects the press from the government. It says nothing about whether the press has to be any good. What actually disciplines the quality of American news — competition, professional norms, libel law, audience demand — and how does each of those behave when outrage is the thing audiences reward?
- This is a fictional anchor giving a speech no working anchor could give and keep their job. Does watching it make you more critical of the press, or does it let you feel critical without doing any of the work? Be honest about your own reaction.
Assignment
Take one national story from the past week and read how three outlets with different audiences covered it — the headline, the first two paragraphs, and who gets quoted first. In two pages, say what each outlet treats as the story, and then make the harder call: where the differences are bias, where they are the audience the outlet is writing for, and where they are ordinary news judgment that you happen to disagree with.
Clip hosted on Critical Commons.