新闻编辑室第三季

我一直对记者这个职业不感冒。生命有限，有那个时间动笔，与其记录一些转瞬即逝的新闻，还不如编故事或者写诗。而且在有些政治体制之下，即使你对新闻有自己的看法，但是也没多少行动的空间。在这种环境之下，你即使“知道”，也无法“成为”，“畅谈国事”实质上等于“空谈国事”。继而了解新闻也不再属于人在生活中的遭遇，而直接上升成了哲学意义上的人在生存中的处境。

《新闻编辑室》的故事围绕着一群新闻工作者中的理想主义者展开，Aaron Sorkin的本子固然剧情精彩、叙事聪明，本质上却还是对Greater Fool的颂扬和同情的交织，其混合比例随着剧情走向而不断变化。从这个角度上来说， 抛开那些排列组合交错纵横无比复杂、但删了过后可以让整部剧再上一个台阶的二不挂五的办公室恋情，《新闻编辑室》的核心其实相当简单。从第1季战歌，第2季叹歌，再到第3季挽歌，全剧谱写了一个非常标准的先扬后抑的三段乐章理想主义协奏曲。

这部协奏曲虽然没有创造出新的音乐形式，但跳出政治立场也忽略掉其叙事艺术来看，其内容所具有的时代意义依然可圈可点。基于对美利坚合众国政治制度和对这个国家新闻行业的一些基本了解，我还是很有信心顶着无数剧情漏洞把这部剧看作是一个现实主义题材而不是屠龙奇幻。毕竟，至少某种程度上我也相信：新闻不光是只有让人发笑和惊悚的故事性，新闻也可以激发和指导、甚至是引导人的行动。如同McAvoy所言，他身负“教化众生”的任务("mission to civilize")。

纵观人类历史，这个物种从来就没有在自我作死上停止过创新哪怕一分钟，而身负“教化众生”使命的精英们从来从事的都是堂吉诃德式的任务。在这部剧的最后，McAvoy对他们这帮新闻人的总结就是这个西班牙疯子宣言的现代版本。

There's a hole in the side of the boat.That hole is never going to be fixed and it's never going away and you can't get a new boat. This is your boat. What you have to do is bail water out faster than it's coming in.

“舀水行舟”这个场景不光闪耀着堂吉诃德理想主义的光辉，而且还充满着西西弗式的悲剧命运的力量。至此，《新闻编辑室》的基本逻辑达到了一个圆满的闭合，好像无法再被往前多推一步了。毕竟为文明保驾护航不就是理想主义者的命运吗？

但其实只要换从另外的角度来看，有些问题才刚刚现出雏形。

从某种程度上，这种“舀水行舟”解决方法好像的确可能行得通，至少《加勒比海盗》系列第1集里，Jack Sparrow船长的确这样成功地达到了港口，还省去了最后的泊船费（船进港过后，没人舀水了，马上就沉了）。但是问题是，如果那个洞正在越变越大，那又该怎么办？

Aaron Sorkin非常聪明。虽然美国大众的平均常识指数不论怎样看都宛若智障，他也没有把堂吉诃德的艰难算在庸众头上。我猜他应该考虑了最基本的政治正确和斗争策略，毕竟精英主义的正确打开方式是说一些群众听不懂的东西吓得他们只能把你封圣了事，而不是自我赋值开地图炮直接指出他们是白痴的客观事实。但更重要的一点是，今天的众生其实并不是以一种反革命的热情反对教化，而只是对教化漠不关心而已。他们并不是敌人，他们只是路人。

不是人的蜕化、而是技术的进步，改变了今天传媒的整体形态，让大规模极低成本的内容制造和传播成为了可能，进而导致内容的整体质量不可避免地下降。反映在新闻里面，新媒体的时效性变得极为强大，但是其准确性却很难高过街头巷尾的闲谈。新闻越来越变得只在于刺激反应而不负责指导行动，其内容无法再提供出什么深层次的意义，专业性成为了可有可无的东西。新闻的核心要素最终只剩下了媒介本身——媒介即传播，而传播是为了传播本身，转发万岁！

然而这儿有一个很有意思的例子：在这部剧里，波士顿恐袭事件过后，民众大量发布的各种信息造成了极大混乱；但是在电影《恐袭波士顿》里面，恰恰是调查组发动了整个波士顿的民众来贡献各种各样的信息，才迅速地定位了恐怖分子。

从新闻的角度来看，群众集体开喇叭是将真知灼见彻底淹没在了垃圾里面，误判可能造成伤害，胡说却没有责任，数以万计的七嘴八舌对反思事件深层次原因和提升个人意识高度都毫无作用。但是从数据分析的角度看，大数据恰恰为分析提供了最好的样本，而一个优秀的分析完全可以充分利用数据能够得到所需要的信息而解决问题。

这个矛盾的核心纠结在于：新闻是信息，但新闻又不只是信息。曾经需要新闻才能告知民众、进而得到解决的问题，现在只需要信息本身就能够跳过民众、进而得到解决了。一方面，传统的新闻作为信息提供者已经落伍了，新闻正变得越来越没有用。另一方面，民众作为信息的提供者变得越来越有用，而作为新闻的受众、进而自发行动的人，变得越来越无足轻重。

归根结底，这是因为“地球”这个物理存在并没有扩大或缩小，但是存在于人类意识中的“世界”却因为技术而早已面目全非。

一方面，技术扩展了共同世界的广度，曾经的视野之外，今天可以被轻松地拉到面前。以前，“Georgia”对于美国人来说就是佐治亚州，而高加索山脉的格鲁吉亚国和天王星一样远，地球那一边的拿破仑向莫斯科的进军对麻省普通人的生活影响无限趋近于零。但是今天，他的确需要具备基本的世界地理知识之后，才能清楚俄军坦克的确没有入侵亚特兰大，进而决定下一次投票的时候更偏向哪一个候选人的外交政策。

另一方面，技术扩展了共同世界的深度，曾经的视野之下，今天也可以被清晰地呈现出来。每年11万起的强奸案很长时间以来都是客观的存在，但是其长期的隐蔽只有在被技术统计处理之后，才第一次作为巨大的社会问题被展示出来。而当前的系统在不扯个几年皮之前，貌似完全无法对应这个巨大的挑战。受害者最终还是只能依赖技术进步提供的简单而粗暴的解决方式——反强奸的举报兼人肉网站，一个非常标准的集约化信息中枢，而不是永远读不完的新闻报道。

无论是个人的破坏力量，还是政府的压迫力量，在技术的加持下都变得更强。世界变得越来越小，人类正在加速步入风险社会。在这个社会里面，精英所推崇的共识建设、理性预判几乎没有什么腾挪空间，因为没人听得懂，也根本没有精力去听，都要忙着争抢自己声音的一亩三分地。能够教化众生的新闻越来越变得更像是在狂风暴雨中5公里的长度上使用狙击枪，其各种变数之大，让瞄准目标及计算弹道变得毫无意义，本质上和朝月亮开火没什么区别。这个时候如果为了解决问题，需要做的是更换武器，放下枪，举起炮，管用的不再是稳定的弹头，而是足够当量的炸药。

换言之，在今天这个世界里，当全民参与的事情必须得到解决的时候，其方式更多是以人类从诞生以来就驾轻就熟的战争来搞定，而不是以文明社会所自豪的谈判、仲裁和审判来达成，只不过这种战争的弹药是信息、阵地是关注，的确毫发无伤，但一样无比闹热。

在这场新形式的战争里面，专业壁垒被技术拆得千疮百孔，面对绝对数量的群众们僵尸出行一次百万的阵势，传统的媒体精英连个站桩的地方都找不到。无论是身处道德困境，还是面临能力过期，一直以来垄断话语权的精英们捏话筒的那只手其实早就已经力有不逮。最终，他们会犯错，伦理上变得可鄙，事务上彻底失败，但是他们所处的社会位置又决定了社会不会给他们原谅和同情。他们中的现实主义者会拥抱技术，凭着优秀的专业功底（很大程度上就是无中生有码字的能力和面不改色扯淡的本事）驾轻就熟地转化为垃圾制造商。而他们中的理想主义者会抱持着新闻理想，以教化众生为己任，以知情尊严为信仰，向世界之轮这个恐怖的风车继续发起决死冲锋。

他们是自己的国会、自己的法官、自己的律师，以及自己的处刑人，因此最终他们也只能自己和自己和解，做自己的神父。

对新闻原则的绝对坚持让McAvoy大婚当日的入狱成为了这群唐.吉柯德的最高光。他坚持的是得失测算之下彻底不对等的荒谬，是用一种疯狂对抗另一种疯狂。McAvoy在牢里面住了54天之后，Aaron Sorkin最终用另一个堂吉诃德的自杀结束了这场对抗。这的的确确是他笔下的温柔，但明眼人都能看出来，现实中的死结不可能这么简单就解开。

所以，回到“舀水行舟”那个场景，我们可以很有信心地说，哪怕那个洞越变越大，理想主义者依然会不断舀水，直到最后一刻——这是一个“山就在那里”式的回答，因为对于他们来说，这是值得做的正确的事情。船沉定了。Never mind. 必输之仗也要撑到最后，尊严要有。

不过，还有一个问题：“舀水行舟”的确悲壮，但这船在往哪儿开呢？

对于人类文明这艘船，理想主义的新闻人是它的维护工，努力避免它被自身的愚蠢所倾覆。但维护员的工作毕竟只是保证这艘船正常的运转，本身并不打造船的形态，也不会去眺望船的航向，更不会去指挥船的行进。大海航行靠舵手，“舀水”的不是舵手。

在整个剧走向尾声的时候，这个剧迎来了唯一一个让McAvoy也瞠目结舌的嘉宾，也是唯一一个登上了电视荧幕却不了了之的访谈——科学揭示的环境危机。

对于理想主义者而言，“教化众生”还算得上是一个辛苦痛苦却不失尊严的选择，但目光放得更远一些、眼界放得更宽一些，结果所有人能做的其实都只是静待启示录降临而已。

在地球母亲面前，这艘破船的旅程其实早就已经划上了句号，现在的问题已经不再是需要怎样舀水才能够保证继续航行，现在的问题是：

海马上就干了。

没什么再能说的了。聪明如Aaron Sorkin，在这里也让替他发声的McAvoy保持了沉默。过后花了整整一集来思考“教化众生”，只不过这一次不是思考这个使命的终点，而是回顾这个使命的起点：

你爹从来没想教你去“教化众生”，他只是想教你钓鱼而已。

所以，趁海干之前，和你父亲一起钓次鱼吧，不然可能就真的来不及了。

据闻Newsroom（新闻编辑室）第三季将是最终季，HBO不打算继续跟金牌编剧Aaron Sorkin在Newsroom上合作下去。在剧中一直若隐若现的SNS（社交媒体）幽灵，正在慢慢地向传统的媒体网络（剧中的ACN是一个全媒体网络）伸出它的毒手。就像第三季第四集中的大款老板Pruit叫嚣的那样：数字时代已经来临，众包将替代传统新闻生产。 众包其实是一个从社交网络时代兴起的热词，意思是让更多的人来一起共同完成某件事情（比如：众筹、翻译）。用在媒体领域，就像是Pruit所说的那样：把资源交给大众（更多的大众、普通人），让他们来生产喜闻乐见的新闻：娱乐、体育或者更多形式的内容（视频等多媒体）。 如果众包时代来临，那么传统的新闻生产商：媒体——将有更多人失业，尽管在社交网络时代，媒体已经有很多人失业：信息渠道的增加（信息爆炸），人们不再常常去看报纸、电视。而即使看电视，人们会有更多的选择，也就是说，某个电视节目的替代性产品越来越多。如：你如果觉得中国好声音不好看，就会有另一个节目给你选择：中国好歌曲；还有诸如爸爸去哪儿、奔跑XX之类的节目。如果都不好看？OK，关闭窗口，打开新的浏览器窗口，就好像整个世界都在等着你。 而新闻呢？由于（经过审查的）信息渠道（不是信息来源）越来越多，作为信息渠道某一款产品也拥有着非常多的替代性方案。如果你不喜欢新浪，你可以看网易，你可以看搜狐，如果都不喜欢，你还可以看今日头条。如果你累了，还可以看各门各类的垂直新闻网站，还有一大批的本地新闻网站等着你打开而你或者根本不知道它们存在着（过）。 众包时代就意味着，你会拥有更多的信息传播渠道，更甚至你也会参与其中的信息编辑或传播。这么听着是不是很耳熟？没错，这里说的（可能）就是Micro Blog，即更广义上的微博客：新浪微博、Twitter、Facebook（一部分功能），还有更多可能是SNS网站，甚至是微信。在这里，众包时代把媒体门槛踏破，为普罗大众提供更便捷的的工具和传播途径。也就是说：明天，只要你也会一些简单的编辑操作，你也可以成为主播、编辑、记者，每个人都可以成为新闻的在场者。 每个人都可以成为记者，生产内容——这其实就是一个用户生产内容（UGC）的升级版。但是，我就想Newsroom里的新闻总监Charlie那样对此报以怀疑态度：当每个人都是内容生产者的时候，谁来作double check？当每个人都是第一信息源，那谁来作为Second Source（当然，每个人都可以作second source）？更重要的是：普罗大众真的能产生更宽泛范畴上的新闻观点么？诸如某个政党的选举（当然这里说的是美国、台湾什么的）背后的利益集团问题，诸如某个政客背后的世界观、偏见以及关于公平、公正的讨论等等。 聪明的你或者注意到这样一个悖论存在：如果有着这样一个人，他可以知晓天文地理，可以谈论以上我所列举的一切，他可以做出很多很好的新闻节目，可以剖析得非常到位，那么，他/她还是普罗大众么？这样的举例如果太抽象，可以搜索一下前段时间很火的某个女穷游学家（猫力）的事迹：当一个女生可以奢侈地住各种豪华酒店“穷游”的时候，她就不再是在穷游。 那么，我的意思就是：不是人人都可以成为记者和编辑的？所以我们就应该鼓励诸如澎湃新闻这样的存在？这又不得不变成另一个范畴的讨论：如果是在一个自由出版的环境里（如美国），可以强调“并不是所有人都可以做媒体新闻”的；而在一个不能自由出版的环境里（你懂的）如果你再强调“不是所有人都可以媒体/新闻”的，那就显得装外宾了。 或者到了下结论的时候：当每个人都可以生产内容的时候（如在微信），你可以看到非常多的信息，这些信息包括各类鸡汤和生活指南。当然，这并不是微信的错。 最后，在SNS时代，（自由世界的）普罗大众是可以拥有真相的么？或者说，更形而上地，普罗大众是可以接近真相的么？就像Newsroom里的Pruit说的那样，新闻（剧中Pruit所说的应该是面向18-24岁的青年人的新闻内容）是可以众包的么？当SNS幽灵把剧中的ACN淹没的时候，Aaron Sorkin可能已经想到了另一个出路，以个人博客起家的huffingtonpost已经成为大众媒体。这个媒体里既有类似纽约时报的“阳春白雪”般的内容，也有Buzzfeed“下里巴人”般的搞笑幽默。而且，重要的是这家媒体使用的就类似于“众包”模式：让更多人参与到新闻的编辑和传播中去。 可是悖论又会随之而来，当huffingtonpost成为网络新贵（被AOL以3.15亿美元收购）之后，它就失去了其普罗大众的基础：它开始像其他权威媒体一样，收拢大量的精英人士，搜罗大量的专业编辑记者——很明显，他们都不是乌合之众。

Newsroom这部剧在美媒下还是有很大争议的，这种争议甚至不是对这部剧的for being liberal，更多来源于liberals for not doing enough。编剧Aaron Sorkin（如同你能从他的写作中看到的那样）常被描述成一个prick，一个smug，或一个chauvinist（比如一个记者曾写一篇文章来叙述Sorkin对她本人采访时候的condescension和不尊重，她说“In Sorkinville, the gods are men." 详见“How to get under Aaron Sorkin’s skin (and also, how to high-five properly)” //www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/television/how-to-get-under-aaron-sorkins-skin-and-also-how-to-high-five-properly/article4363455/），并且因为他的写作局限而被批评（说教性太强、自我陶醉...）

我感觉这些critic比豆瓣上目前看到的影评要成熟更多，并且也更加有效率、progressive。这篇影评来源于New Yorker的Emily Nussbaum （她本人在本剧第一季开始就发表过影评"Broken News"。见//www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/25/broken-news，或我的转载//movie.douban.com/review/12970899/）。Nussbaum在2016年因为她在纽约客写的影评获得普利策奖。她个人肯定了第三季的一些进步（比如她比较喜欢的Maggie & morality debate on the train），同时也特别分析批评了Sorkin对于Princeton女大学生 & rape的处理。

newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/the-newsroom-crazy-making-campus-rape-episode

By Emily Nussbaum

As this review indicates, I wasn’t a fan of the first four episodes of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom.” In the two years since that blazing pan, however, I’ve calmed down enough to enjoy the show’s small pleasures, such as Olivia Munn and Chris Messina. When characters talk in that screwball Sorkin rhythm, it’s fun to listen to them. As manipulative as “The Newsroom” ’s politics can be, I mostly share them. There are days when an echo chamber suits me fine.

For the first two seasons, the show stayed loyal to its self-righteous formula, which many viewers found inspirational. Sorkin’s imaginary cable network, Atlantis Cable News, would report news stories from two years before, doing them better than CNN and Fox News and MSNBC did at the time. Characters who were right about things (Will McAvoy, Sloan Sabbith, the unbearable Jim Harper, the ridiculously named MacKenzie McHale) strove for truth and greatness, even when tempted to compromise. They bantered and flirted. And each week, they debated idiots who were wrong. These fools included Tea Partiers, gossip columnists, Occupy Wall Street protesters, and assorted nobodies enabled by digital culture—narcissists, bigots, and dumbasses. Sometimes, the debates included sharp exchanges, but mostly, because the deck was stacked, they left you with nothing much to think about.

Often, the designated idiot wouldn’t even get to explain her side of an argument: she’d get to make only fifteen per cent of a potential case, although occasionally, as with an Occupy Wall Street activist, the proportion climbed closer to fifty per cent. There were other maddening aspects of the show—a plot in which a woman who worked in fashion believed that she wasn’t good enough to date a cable news producer, the McAvoy/McHale romance, the Season 2 Africa-flashback episode. So, you know, I had complaints. But I tried to stay Zen and enjoy Munn and Messina. And, in all sincerity, I was happy when the third and final season débuted, because it was such an obvious step up. The early episodes were brisk and self-mocking. There was a nifty, endearingly ridiculous grandeur to the story arc about McAvoy going to jail to protect a source. Even more satisfying, the show's debates with idiots had undergone a sea change. In Season 3, the people who were wrong were allowed to be actively smart (like Kat Dennings’s role as a cynical heiress) and funny (as with B. J. Novak’s portrayal of a demonic tech tycoon who ended up taking over ACN). In certain scenes, they got to make seventy-five per cent of an argument, leading to fleet and comparatively complex debates.

In the single best scene of the whole series, the number jumped to a hundred per cent. Maggie (Allison Pill)—now rehabilitated from last season’s horrible post-Africa, bad-haircut plot—took an Amtrak train from Boston. In a plot cut-and-pasted from the headlines, she overheard an E.P.A. official's candid cell-phone conversation, sneakily took notes, and then confronted him with follow-up questions. Both sides made a solid case: she pointed out that he was in public and her obligation was to be a reporter, not a P.R. conduit. Also, had Maggie gone through “official” routes, he would have lied to her. He argued that by quoting an unguarded, personal discussion, she was making the world a less humane, more paranoid place. So when Maggie threw her notes away, it wasn’t as simple as, “He was right and she was wrong”—she’d made a real moral choice. Given the kind of show that “The Newsroom” is, there was plenty of wish-fulfillment—Maggie got the interview anyway, plus a date with an admiring ethicist—but those elements felt fairy-tale satisfying.

After the Amtrak scene, I turned downright mellow, even fond of the series, the way you might cherish an elderly uncle who is weird about women and technology, but still, you know, a fun guy. My guard went down. So when I watched Sunday’s infuriating episode, on screeners, I wasn’t prepared. What an emotional roller coaster! I will leave it to others to discuss the mystical jail-cell plot, the creepy reunion of Jim and Maggie, the fantasy that even the worst cable network would re-launch Gawker Stalker, and, more admirably, the way that B. J. Novak’s evil technologist character seems to have broken the fourth wall and stepped into reality to disrupt The New Republic. Someone should certainly write about Sorkin’s most clever pivot: he’s taken the accusations of sexism that are regularly levelled at his show and pointed the finger at Silicon Valley, in a brilliant “Think I’m bad? Well, look at this guy” technique.

Yet when it comes to disconcerting timeliness, no scene from this episode stands out like the one in which the executive producer Don Keefer pre-interviews a rape victim. When Sorkin wrote it, he could not have known that CBC radio host Jian Ghomeshi and, later, Bill Cosby would be accused of sexual assault by so many women, some anonymous, some named. He couldn’t have known that an article would be published in Rolling Stone about a gang rape at the University of Virginia or that this story would turn out, enragingly, to have been insufficiently vetted and fact-checked. The fallout from the magazine’s errors is ongoing: it’s not clear yet whether Jackie, the woman who told Rolling Stone that she was gang-raped, made the story up, told the truth but exaggerated, was so traumatized that her story shifted due to P.T.S.D., or what. The one thing that’s clear is that the reporting was horribly flawed, and that this mistake will cause lasting harm, both for people who care about the rights of victims and people who care about the rights of the accused. Key point: these aren’t two separate groups.

Anyway, there we are, with Don Keefer—one of the few truly appealing characters on the show and half of the show’s only romance worth rooting for, with Munn’s Sloan Sabbith—in a Princeton dorm room, interviewing a girl, Mary, who said she’d been raped. In a classic “Newsroom” setup, she wasn’t simply a victim denied justice. Instead, the woman was another of Sorkin’s endless stream of slippery digital femme fatales; she created a Web site where men could be accused, anonymously, of rape. The scene began with an odd, fraught moment: when Don turned up at her dorm room, notebook in hand, he hesitates to close the door, clearly worried that she might make a false accusation. But since this is Season 3, not 1 or 2, the Web site creator isn’t portrayed as a venal idiot, like the Queens-dwelling YouTube blackmailer on a previous episode, who wrote “Sex And The City” fan fiction and used Foursquare at the laundry. The Princeton woman got to make seventy-five per cent of her case, which, in a sense, only made the scene worse.

Before describing the scene between Keefer and the Princeton student, it’s important to note that the scene’s theme of sexual gossip about powerful men has been an obsession since this show began. For a while, Will McAvoy was tormented by a Page Six reporter who first got snubbedby him, then placed gossip items in revenge, thenslept with him, then blackmailed him. There was a similar plot about Anthony Weiner; just last week, Jim’s girlfriend Hallie sold him out in a post for the fictional Web site Carnivore. You’d have to consult Philip Roth’s “The Human Stain” to find a fictional narrative more consistently worried about scurrilous sexual gossip directed at prominent men. It’s a subject that replicates Sorkin’s own experiences, from “The Newsroom” on back to “The West Wing.”

The scene between Don and the student takes place in four segments, as Don reveals to her why he was there: not to talk her into going public, but to talk her out of it. His boss, under pressure to appeal to Millennials and go viral, insisted that the segment be done in the most explosive way possible—as a live debate between the student and Jeff, the guy she claims raped her. As Don and she talk, the woman tells him her story. She’d gone to a party, took drugs, threw up, passed out—and then two men had sex with her while she was unconscious. The next morning, she called “city police, campus police, and the D.A.’soffice.” She can name the guys; she knows where they live. She had a rape kit done. “That should be the easiest arrest they ever made,” she says. At every juncture, Don is sorrowful, rational, gentlemanly, concerned about not hurting her feelings, and reflexively condescending, in a tiptoeing, please-don’t-hurt-me way. Eventually, he tells her that Jeff, the accused rapist, has also been pre-interviewed: Jeff told Don that she wasn’t raped—in fact, she’d begged to have sex with two men.

Back and forth they go, discussing a wide range of issues—legal, moral, journalistic, etc. The dialogue conflates and freely combines these issues. First, there is the question of anonymous accusations, online or off. There is also the question of direct accusations, like the one this student made against a specific guy, in person, using her own name—in a police station and the D.A.’soffice, and then online. There is the question of how acquaintance rape is or isn’t prosecuted in the courts; there is the question of how it's dealt with, or covered up, within the university system; and there is a separate question about how journalists, online and on television, should cover these debates. But a larger question hovers in the background, the one hinted at when Don came in the door: Does he believe her?

When I first watched the scene, I was most unnerved by the way their talk mashed everything together, suggesting that there were only two sides to the question—a bizarrely distorted premise. It’s possible, for instance, to believe (as I do) that a Web site posting anonymous accusations is a dangerous idea and to also think it’s fine for a woman to describe her own rape in public, to protest an administration that buries her accusation, and to go on cable television to discuss these issues. It’s possible to oppose a “live debate” between a rape victim and her alleged rapist and to believe that rape survivors can be public advocates. There was also something perverse about the way the student was portrayed, simultaneously, as a sneaky anonymous online force and also an attention-seeker eager to go on live TV. (And, given the way that Rolling Stone’s Jackie is now being “doxxed” online, it’s grotesque that the episode has the Princeton woman praise Don for tracking her down, “old-school.”) The actress was solid, but the character behaved, as do pretty much all digital women on the show, with the logic of a dream figure, concocted of Sorkin’s fears and anxieties, not like an actual person.

“The kind of rape you’re talking about is difficult or impossible to prove,” Don tells her. It’s not a “kind of rape,” the woman responds sharply. She argues that her site isn’t about getting revenge, that it’s “a public service”: “Do not go on a date with these guys, do not go to a party with these guys.” Don cuts her off: "Do not give these guys a job, ever." He argues that she’s making it easier for men to be falsely accused, but the woman says that she's weighed that cost and decided that it’s more important that women be warned. “What am I wrong about?” she asks. “What am I wrong about?”

I’d love to see a show wrestle with these issues in a meaningful way, informed by fact and emotion. But eventually, the “Newsroom” episode gets to the core of what’s really going on, that shadow question, and this is when it implodes. The law is failing rape victims, says the student. “That may be true, but in fairness, the law wasn’t built to serve victims,” argues Don. “In fairness?” she says. “I know,” he says, sorrowful again, eyes all puppy-dog. “Do you believe me?” she asks him suddenly. “Of course I do," Don tells her. “Seriously,” she presses. He dodges the question: “I’m not here on a fact-finding mission.” She pushes him for a third time: “I’m just curious. Be really honest.”

Finally, he reveals his real agenda. He’s heard two stories: one from "a very credible woman” and the other from a sketchy guy with every reason to lie. And he’s obligated, Don tells her, to believe the sketchy guy’s story. She's stunned. “This isn’t a courtroom,” she points out, echoing the thoughts of any sane person. “You’re not legally obligated to presume innocence.” “I believe I’m morally obligated," Don says, in his sad-Don voice. WTF LOL OMFG, as they say on the Internet. Yes, that's correct: Don, the show’s voice of reason (and Sorkin, one presumes), argues that a person has a moral obligation to believe a man accused of rape over the woman who said he’d raped her, as long as he hasn't been found guilty of rape. This isn’t about testimony, or even an abstract stance meant to strengthen journalism. (“Personally, I believe you, but as a reporter, I need to regard your story with suspicion, just as I do Jeff’s.”) As an individual, talking to a rape survivor, Don says that on principle, he doesn’t believe her.

At this point, Don gets to make his win-the-argument speech about the dangers of trial by media, lack of due process, etc. “The law can acquit; the Internet never will. The Internet is used for vigilantism every day, but this is a whole new level, and if we go there, we’re truly fucked,” he says. He warns her that appearing on TV will hurt her: she’ll get “slut-shamed.” She begins to cry and tells him that, while he may fear false accusations, she’s scared of rape. “So you know what my site does? It scares you.” Her case will be covered like sports, he remarks with disgust. “I’m gonna win this time,” she replies with bravado. And so Don goes back to ACN and he lies, telling his producer Charlie that he couldn’t find the woman at all—and then Charlie throws a tantrum and dies of a heart attack, but that’s a matter for a different post.

Look, “The Newsroom” was never going to be my favorite series, but I didn’t expect it to make my head blow off, all over again, after all these years of peaceful hate-watching. Don’s right, of course: a public debate about an alleged rape would be a nightmare. Anonymous accusations are risky and sometimes women lie about rape (Hell, people lie about everything). But on a show dedicated to fantasy journalism, Sorkin’s stand-in doesn’t lobby for more incisive coverage of sexual violence or for a responsible way to tell graphic stories without getting off on the horrible details or for innovative investigations that could pressure a corrupt, ass-covering system to do better. Instead, he argues that the idealistic thing to do is not to believe her story. Don’s fighting for no coverage: he's so identified with falsely accused men and so focussed on his sorrowful, courtly discomfort that, mainly, he just wants the issue to go away. And Don is our hero! Sloan Sabbith, you in trouble, girl.

Clearly, I’ve succumbed to the Sorkin Curse once again: critique his TV shows and you’ll find you’ve turned into a Sorkin character yourself—fist-pounding, convinced that you know best, talking way too fast, and craving a stiff drink. But after such an awful week, this online recap might be reduced to: Trigger warning. The season finale runs next week and thank God for that. Like poor old Charlie Skinner, my heart can’t take it anymore.

Emily Nussbaum 本人在本剧第一季开始就已经发了一篇比较critical的影评"Broken News"。见//www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/25/broken-news（我的转载//movie.douban.com/review/12970899/）。

在当时，对此，她同编辑室的New Yorker colleague David Denby也写了一篇简短的回应as counterargument.

In Defense of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” //www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/in-defense-of-aaron-sorkins-the-newsroom

I loved Emily Nussbaum’s negative review of Aaron Sorkin’s new HBO series, “The Newsroom,” which had its première last Sunday night, but I also enjoyed the show—certainly more than she did—and, afterwards, I felt a kind of moviegoer’s chagrin. Movie audiences get very little dialogue this snappy; they get very little dialogue at all. In movies we are starved for wit, for articulate anger, for extravagant hyperbole—all of which pours in lava flows during the turbulent course of “The Newsroom.” The ruling gods of movie screenwriting, at least in American movies, are terseness, elision, functional macho, and heartfelt, fumbled semi-articulateness. Some of the very young micro-budget filmmakers, trying for that old Cassavetes magic (which was never magical for me, but never mind) achieve a sludgy moodiness with minimal dialogue, or with improvisation—scenes that can be evocative and touching. But the young filmmakers wouldn’t dream of wit or rhetoric. It would seem fake to them. Thank heavens the swelling, angry, sarcastic, one-upping talk in “The Newsroom” is unafraid of embarrassing anyone.

终于看完S03E06，季终集也是完结季，心情久久不能平复。不想跟ACN说再见，但对于本剧来说，对于尚未想好该如何处理自己提出的问题的索金来说，在这里停止确是一个不错的节点（甚至还有点“戛然而止”的感觉）。记得在一个采访里索金说，到了第三季才觉得找对了感觉，如果有机会，他想从第一季开始重写一遍，从头开始重新来过。倘若这话有回响，真的很期待《晚间新闻3.0》的华丽转身。 从S01到S03一路看过来的感觉，正如索金所言，有种“渐入佳境”的感觉。第一季铺陈了场景、环境、人物关系，把这群对职业有着近乎偏执的坚持的人们的工作场景乃至信念大致交代了清楚。一集一个事件，短小精悍，看起来也比较轻松。第二季一共9集，用Genoa事件贯穿始终，平行剪辑的节奏控制得挺好，并不拖沓。人物的感情、情绪也都刻画得很细腻。如果说第二季是“山雨欲来”，第三季变革则真正到来。ACN遭遇拆分、收购，Neal因为涉嫌间谍罪为保护线人逃亡委内瑞拉，Will入狱，老Charlie倒在Newsroom这个他的“战场”。老查理的倒下为这场传统媒体与新媒体的较量、两种不同的新闻观的抗衡染上了悲壮的色调，给了他致命一击的不是Pruit，不是Sloan，而是他心里过不去的那道坎儿，他的矛盾与挣扎。其实老查理也意识到现如今的方式能走不动了，可是在新媒体环境下，又一时找不到能够承载他们理想的的新的新闻运营方式。面对Pruit这种近乎“亵渎”了新闻本质的做法，他无法妥协。他本能地坚持着他的新闻信仰，力求坚持正义、良知、专业、准确、真实，但是为了保护一众有着同样理想的后辈他又不得不做出妥协的姿态，走不出这个困境的查理，即使没有倒在Sloan的事情上，也会倒在Don的Princeton事情上，或者在看到Neal重建的网站后猝然离去。 老查理这个“堂吉诃德”的死（他绝不仅是桑丘啊，Will是打趣说的~），象征着一个新闻时代告一段落。ACN要何去何从，也是当下许多传统媒体头疼的事情。年初的时候一篇关于BBC转型策略的深度报道和一篇《纽约时报》的创新报告（其实是数字时代的反思报告）疯转一时，可见ACN的切肤之痛，索金刻画得并不夸张，真实的媒体转型比这来得更加的猛烈。有些媒体已经逐渐开始寻摸到了一些不清晰但尚且可行的转型道路，有些则依旧面临着生存的威胁。所谓新媒体，指的不仅仅是新的技术与渠道，还是一种新的社会关系下的媒介形态，与日常生活联系更加紧密因而要想求新求变，革新技术、拓展渠道，开微信微博APP只是个开始，从内容到思维都面临着彻底的变化。 本季提出的问题，从本剧的结尾——Mc坐上了Reese的位置，Will主播台，Neal回归重建网站，晚间新闻迎来了前所未有的新闻自主空间——来看，索金本人还是倾向于新闻专业主义的解决方案。虽然看似有些理想主义化，但个人还是比较认同。索金虽非新闻人，也是资深媒体人，已经对第一季的定调感到不甚满意的他不会在结尾又回到原点。尚且做个善良的揣测，我认为“专业化”、新闻精英主义的不完全妥协或许是索金对未来媒体发展的一个预测和预期。众包新闻也是新闻发展的一个阶段，可以说是一个向下的“分”的过程，将新闻的制作权、发布权下放给了普通民众。有道是“合久必分分久必合”，在“分”进行到一个阶段以后，新媒体的优势发挥到了一个瓶颈，而缺陷则开始逐渐暴露。即使已经被微信控制但仍然没有彻底弃掉微博的我们对众包新闻的种种再熟悉不过了。它的缺点现在已暴露得很明显：琐碎，缺乏深度，虚假信息、失实谣言等等…对于一个普通用户来说，倘若要获得准确可靠全面的信息，可能便需要选择二次（甚至更多次的）核实，这样便会增加了获取可靠信息的成本；亦或是选择不付出这个成本一笑了之；当然也有用户并不具备足够的分辨能力，在不自觉的情况下充当了谣言传播的工具。 当然随着新媒体的发展我们用户的媒介素养也在随之提升，同时随着环境越来越嘈杂，为了降低获取准确信息的成本，我们会倾向于选择可靠的信息源→专业媒体，毕竟看新闻的目的还是获取真实（有用）的信息，用户对内容的要求也在变得越来越高。新闻在向细分化、定制化发展的时候，也对专业化的需求其实是不减反增的，这种专业化的新闻生产、筛选、聚合工作，也即分久必合的“合”还是需要由专业人员来完成。这或可作为索金“新闻专业主义”不倒的结尾的一个善意的、积极的解释吧。 扯远了，再回到本剧。继续ACN新闻台原来的样子也并不明智…抱紧电视这个渠道的做法太传统，再有钱也不可能就这么一路烧下去→显然会越赔越多。Mac们需要新的手段和渠道，如果继续写，Neal的戏份或许要加，Mac和Will或许会比老查理更头疼。但无论如何，有着这样的坚持的一群人，他们有坚持但不固执，坚持己见却不固步自封，在Will决定帮助Neal的那一刻我已经隐约看到，Newsroom不会就此止步待毙，即使会付出很大的代价，那个开始于“堂吉诃德”死后的“3.0时代”正在到来。 Coming soon… ———————————————————————— 30号修改 看到哥伦比亚新闻评论的一篇文章，写最近索尼被黑《采访》被迫撤档的事件的事情，媒体应该在实践中扮演怎样的角色。有段话写的很好，摘录在此： “The new reality is that journalists simply do not own the news cycle: Even if Gawker, BuzzFeed News, and Fusion decided to stop covering it, others would take up the mantle,” Anne Helen Petersen writes at BuzzFeed. “The new role of journalists, for better or for worse, isn’t as gatekeepers, but interpreters: If they don’t parse it, others without the experience, credentials, or mindfulness toward protecting personal information certainly will.”