The Newsroom is a glorified over-simplification of the news on television, but it is often entertaining as recent events are seen from a different lens. Its main message is an instructive one: that he who pays the piper also picks his tune applies to the newsroom. The news is at the mercy of advertising dollars and an increasingly detached electorate. It is a self-perpetuating circle of feeding useless information to stupefy the audience who then demand further useless information.
The show is too black and white, with clear heroes and villains and commandments of biblical proportions. Even the intro-scene has a backing track fit for a flag-raising ceremony.
The power of news is exposed in House of Cards. The polarizing schemer of Washington, played by Kevin Spacey, uses the news (and its conduit, Rachel) to achieve his political goals. Smear campaigns, sound bites (“disorganized labour”) and sob stories help misinform and mislead the public. Whether the news is used respectfully, as in the Newsroom, or villainously, by Washington, it is decidedly powerful.
The poor pawns at the Herald spend the entire season at Underwood’s command; but their closeness to the lies is what gives them power. In the finale, Underwood celebrates a victory to be undone by the revelations of vultures-turned-heroes.
Underwood is a tragic hero with periodic soliloquies who is unfairly schemed against and seeks retribution by playing god. He controls, manipulates and kills yet the audience feels not anger, just empathy. Further, he is a guilty pleasure. His actions require the audience to question their own fallibilities and their own value systems. Underwood is the alpha male that is respected in private and scrutinized in public.
His wife turns out to be a complicated character herself (maybe more complicated). She twists and turns, with unclear motives, has power (she overturns her own bill in rebellion against her husband) and is powerless (she is sued by her ideological opposite). She marries her husband for excitement, not happiness.
The two series are diametrically different in mood. The Newsroom is light when House of Cards is dark. Both series were renewed for a second season. The newsroom begins Sunday night.