The rookie anchor shifts uncomfortably under the glaring studio lights. He shuffl es to maintain the perfect silhouette by sitting on the coat-tail of his business jacket. For some time now, the signals the fl oor manager has been gesturing do not make sense. Meanwhile, the lines on the teleprompter seem to scroll faster than before, or maybe it’s just the nerves. His earpiece is a terrible fi t and the director is yelling constantly over the intercom, half the time not at him. When instructions eventually come through for him, he misses them.

The situation inside the control room is no bed of roses either. There is breaking news tonight so the planned rundown is screwed. Everyone with an ear or a hand available is put to use on the phone. The director screams for updates. Tapes are not in while graphics and CGs are wrongly displayed. Someone at the VTR just cued the wrong SOT, incurring another round of verbal onslaught over the intercom. By now, everyone is secretly plotting the director’s murder.

Many who work in the pressure cooker that is the nightly newsroom would know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, you may catch a glimpse of all the chaos in the latest Aaron Sorkin drama series. Welcome to the New York cable station Atlantic Cable News (ACN), where everyone hates the managing editor and secretly (or sometimes openly) wishes him dead.

So how did the newsroom become drama material? One would think the action is always more engaging in front of the camera than behind it. Well, Sorkin thinks otherwise. Though fi ctional, Sorkin’s world of the nightly 60-minute news bulletin does carry breaking stories inspired by actual events. The 2010 BP oil spill, the capture of Osama Bin Laden and the ousting of Egypt’s President Murbarak are some major stories that take centrestage. The cast makes crucial decisions that editors and journalists typically make; wrestling between the need for timeliness versus the certainty of accuracy in the fact-checking process – so no one goes on-air with statements that the newsroom would regret later.

But here’s where reality stops and fantasy kicks in.

Slabs of concrete do not just fall off one’s ceiling as they do in Managing Editor Will McAvoy’s home (blame the new neighbours); and no, a dressing down by one senior producer to an associate producer does not turn into an opportunity for the latter to share a sob story about catching her boyfriend make out with an ex; and no one, and absolutely no one in the industry opens the nightly news with a talking head (McAvoy) delivering a televised public apology lasting a staggering 4 minutes! Yet, in the nightly show called News Night that Sorkin has created, the unthinkable can happen.

Sorkin is unapologetic about the show’s dramatic treatment. He relishes in it.

“I find television, and particularly live television, very romantic. I love the idea that there is this small group of people, way up high, in a skyscraper in the middle of Manhattan, beaming this signal out into the night,” says Sorkin.

Having previously won critical acclaim for The West Wing, Sorkin continues his reign of churning out dramatic monologues in The Newsroom. Despite his success at depicting the “oval offi ce”, this latest installment, though just as intellectual and riled with politicial commentary, had not exactly garnered thumbs up from the industry.

Case in point: in an editorial meeting in episode 3, EP MacKenzie McHale “lectures” the editorial team. “That studio is a courtroom, and we only call expert witnesses. Will is the attorney for both sides. He examines the witness and reveals facts.” Not a single news producer I know says that. We use terms like “objectivity” and “fairness”; and no, the newsroom is certainly no courtroom.

The Newsroom has met with much disapproval, particularly from those in the profession. Journalists fi nd the rhetoric too unrealistic.

Critics though, are largely divided on the show. Content review site Metacritic published a “Metascore” of 57 out of 100 based on 31 industry critics; clearly refl ecting the split. However, one should recall that the medical community cried foul on medical dramas as well. Not all doctors come as dashing as George Clooney in E.R., nor do medical practitioners in the real world fi nd time (or energy) to sleep around as they do on Grey’s Anatomy. It is important, then, to understand that television’s exposé of a profession is often not meant for the eyes of those IN the profession. It also does not seek to attain the endorsement of that profession.

In contrast to the critics, the same Metacritic review revealed Metascores by “users,” or the audience, that was overwhelmingly positive. So detractors it seems, hail largely from the journalistic profession and not the viewing public.

In episode 2, EP MacKenzie says to McAvoy: “We don’t do good television, we do the news.” Sorkin on the other hand, has done the reverse.

“This is also a romanticised, idealised, heightened newsroom – this is not meant to be a documentary. And what I am doing is setting that heightened, idealised newsroom against real news events,” explains Sorkin. “I wanted to do the same thing with the news – to write a Valentine or a love letter to journalism.”

For all the fl ak Sorkin has received, he maintains his intentions are noble. Sorkin says it’s about exalting the profession, not belittling it.

“I have had a chance now to meet journalists of every stripe – print journalists, broadcast journalists, internet journalists – who are very much like the characters on the show, in that they haven’t lost their ideals. They really believe in the news and the role of the news in democracy and they all are trying hard – they are real-life heroes. What they are fi ghting against are simply market forces,” says Sorkin. “They are now required to do the same thing that I am required to do when I am making network television, which is get viewers, so you can sell ad time and pay the bills and that means that the more entertaining stories are going to trump the more important stories that might be more boring”.

In this fight to regain the noble ground lost to commercial interest, one wonders if Sorkin’s need to romanticise the newsroom stems from the very same “market forces” he is so quick to condemn? After all, wouldn’t a more authentic portrayal of the newsroom better showcase the nobility of the profession?

A user on Metacritic by the name “hbo” provides a reasonable response.

“Television is supposed to be entertaining, if it was supposed to be real, we’d just be watching CNBC or CNN. Be sure to watch and judge this amazing show on your own, not from the eyes of a journalist that is comparing it to their own life and work,” writes “hbo.”

Jeff Daniels, who plays the lead, Managing Editor Will McAvoy, supports Sorkin’s treatment of the show.

“It is a constant battle, yes. We held a screening in New York, and there were a lot of television news people there – cable news journalists, producers, anchormen – the who’s who of the industry we are representing. Several of them came up to me and said: ‘I hope the show doesn’t just attack what we do’. And it doesn’t. I hope the show chases the ideals of journalism because they fi ght that fi ght every day against the questions of ratings and of where their audience is going,” says Daniels.

So has the risk paid off? Here’s what the critics have to say: The Wall Street Journal’s Dorothy Rambinowitz remarks that the dialogues bear “small resemblance to any exchange likely to be carried on by human beings, whether in a newsroom or outside one.”

Hank Stuever from The Washington Post says the show “fails to meet the high expectations that greet it, save one: It is crammed with incessant gibber-jabber.”

Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter says: “…on the plus side, you have to applaud Sorkin’s ability to milk emotion whenever he wants. He can make the politically jaded feel patriotic and the cynical see hope in any situation. Also, love or hate his soapboxing, the man can write.”

Of late, the creative team that seeks to expose the drama behind the camera is experiencing some drama itself. Online reports in July alleged that Sorkin had fi red The Newroom’s entire writing staff for the second season, except for one writer. Sorkin and HBO had denied the claims. So as the newsroom of the fictional News Night continue to crusade for the right to practice responsible journalism, HBO fights its own demons in the real world.

Still, the enormous amount of publicity received for the show, whether positive or otherwise, has certainly given HBO the confi dence to proceed with more Sorkin fare. Before season 1 reached its halfway mark, HBO has already ordered a second season. Like it or not, there’s going to be more of The Newsroom to come.

So which side of The Newsroom are you on? The glaring studio lights of criticism, or the throne of the writing control room? Decide soon, because when the clock strikes eight, the news will go on-air, as scheduled.