Thoughts on the Premiere Episode of HBO's "The Newsroom"

I admit it. Down deep inside this completely cynical exterior beats the heart of an eternal optimist. In the reality of the political world it is best to keep the cynicism up front and center yourself around that. In real life, though, remaining optimistic can be the difference in whether or not you can get out of bed in the morning.

So, with some feeling of anticipation, I taped Sunday night's premiere episode of HBO's "The Newsroom". I normally enjoy this kind of show. Though this one is fiction, I like a behind-the-scenes story. I'm a process oriented person and I am fascinated about the decision making process of fast paced work environments.

I have now watched the show and I have very mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I liked the fast pace, the quick verbal exchanges between the characters, the clever dialogue, the facade that this could be a real newsroom.

I am really pissed off about the fact that the story being presented in this episode was the Deepwater Horizon explosion. It was complete exploitation of a tragic event with humans still working to get back to a normal way of life. How dare the liberal yahoos in Hollywood exploit the deaths of eleven people on an oil drilling rig while attempting to score political ideological points.

This tragedy is still too raw in the minds of many people. Real people are dealing with this, not just large corporations and hot shot executives who received the publicity.

Full disclosure: my husband is an engineer on oil drilling rigs. He commissioned the sister rig of the Deepwater Horizon as the two were built in South Korea. The story hits way too close to home for me.

The Newsroom attempts to show characters with differing political views which seep into the reporting of the news stories. We know, as news show viewers that this is a real problem in journalism today. The premise of this show is to present a newsroom that is pursuing the real story, presented without political comment or opinions.

I will have to wait until I watch the next episode before I decide if I will continue to watch this show. I want to like it. I can't, however, make a reasoned judgement given the subject matter of the storyline from the first episode. I'm only human.