The news as it’s meant to be

TV REVIEW

The arrival of The Newsroom (Sky Atlantic) has divided critics right down the middle and the public even more so.
Some are labelling Adam Sorkins’ self proclaimed ‘love letter to journalism’ as pretentious schmaltz but I say ignore the cynics, as there is much to like – sharp dialogue to the foremost of its attributes. Then again, what else would one expect from the man who gave us the ridiculously addictive West Wing.
The opening episode was a bit of a slow burner as it introduced us to the characters that we need to take an interest in for this to work. Once the scene was set however, the second episode picked up the pace. The ‘scene’ by the way began with newsman Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) having a spectacular meltdown on a televised college debate after fielding a question from a student about why America is the greatest country in the world.
Having studiously avoided making a definitive comment about anything throughout both the debate and his career, the jaded anchor’s tirade begins with “It’s not”.
He follows with a rapid-fire round of reasons why – “Seventh in literacy, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy. The only things we lead the world in are number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real and defence spending.”
It goes on in a wonderfully delivered rant that nearly reduces the poor student to a quivering mess.
Will is, miraculously, not fired but gets a few weeks leave to clear his head and returns to find work a changed place. After the once idealistic journalist dipped his toe in the murky waters of being controversial, he started to backtrack on his new-found fame for calling it how it is but, with his show undergoing a revamp with a mission to spread the good word to the masses, and former flame MacKenzie (Emily Mortimer) in the producer’s chair, conveniently introducing a nice subplot, Will begins to find his news mojo again.
Yes there is a lot of preaching here with a heavy dose of lamenting the loss of an old-world news agenda where the small people stick it to the man, but, if you can get past the lecture, Sorkin is clearly aiming to educate the populace on the ethics of new-world journalism and whether the drive for ratings should outweigh content, then this is a slick piece of TV that I think can only get better.
In a mad case of life imitating art, I’ve been reading the Olympic Games build-up with some sense of amusement. Many months ago I mentioned the BBC’s mockumentary Twenty Twelve. At the time I thought the show to be quite funny but that most of the scenarios were a little out of the book of Alan Partridge and couldn’t possibly occur, could they?
As it turns out they could. This week many athletes coming from as far afield as Australia spent up to four hours in buses travelling through grid-locked London in an unofficial tour of the sights as bus drivers drafted in from around Britain got completely lost and couldn’t work the sat nav systems, eerily mirroring an episode where a bus driver from Nottingham has a similar adventure. Set around the deliverance team charged with making the Games happen, this searing satire of beautifully crafted incompetence is becoming less fictional and more real by the day.
In the second of three episodes this week, the poor head of the Olympic Deliverance Commission, Ian Fletcher (the brilliant Hugh Bonneville) is stuck in his hospital bed thanks to last week’s starting gun incident and so the lunatics literally took over the asylum. The first big issue was to choose an ambassador for Inclusivity Day, which went as well as the PR’s attempt to locate a female Wayne Rooney from the women’s football team.
Last week there was a desperate attempt to “re-brand” the problems regarding transport and a panic about security, when they’ve had five years to plan it. I defy anyone to read the papers over the past week and tell me that the people behind Twenty Twelve are in no way clairvoyant.

One to watch
The issue of mental health awareness is becoming more and more prevalent. Only this week the National Suicide Research Foundation issued a report that said frequently reported factors in suicides are significant loss of relationships, bereavement and finances and for the first time highlighted the association between the impact of the recession and suicide.
Next week, a radical new Channel 4 series aims to change negative assumptions associated with mental illness. Throughout the week, eight volunteers will appear in the station’s more popular programmes like Countdown, Come Dine With Me and The Million Pound Drop.
Then all eight will be brought together in The World’s Maddest Job Interview, where employers and psychiatrists will assess them to decide who make the most attractive employees.
Some of the volunteers have had no issues but some are battling with significant mental health conditions – one has been suicidal, one has hidden a chronic mental health condition for over 30 years and one spent eight months sectioned in a psychiatric unit, leaving the ward every morning in a suit to go to work.
All are putting their skills under scrutiny to challenge the discrimination that means one in five workers in the UK has claimed they have been eased out of their jobs after revealing their mental health issue to an employer. The idea behind the programmes is to force mainstream audiences to think about an issue that affects one in four people, but still remains taboo.
The Channel 4 Goes Mad season starts on Monday next with The World’s Maddest Job Interview on Wednesday at 10pm.