Blog Post Three.

HBO’s “The Newsroom”, which only lasted for 3 seasons, was written and produced by Aaron Sorkin. Aaron Sorkin can be credited for many hit shows and movies such as: West Wing, Moneyball, and The Social Network (which he won an Academy Award for). He is also best known for his one shot “walk and talk” scenes, where the actors play out the scene with no cuts. For the screenwriting of The Newsroom, Sorkin did a lot of research of cable news programs to make the show as realistic as possible. Having done some basic research on Sorkin, it can be said that he is a longtime supporter of the Democratic party, played a role in Barack Obama’s campaign, and has established that he is anti-Trump. A lot of his work is political, so I think it’s easy to say that his intended audience is mostly millennials and older adults who are involved and actively follow politics. Sorkin uses many rhetorical elements throughout the clip such as humor (when evading questions), pathos (in the last 3/4 of the clips), and logos (when he is telling the young women stats about America). He also establishes ethos, as the main character is apparently highly respected, a news anchor, and was deemed “the Jay Leno of news anchors”.  However, he also displays fallacies such as excessive sentimental appeal (when he begins swearing and ranting) and ad hominem arguments (where he insults the “sorority girl” and what we can infer is millennials. I believe that Sorkin is trying to convey the fact that many American citizens are actually very uneducated about problems in our country today, and this scene was somewhat of their “rude awakening”. Sorkin is trying to convince the audience that America is not the great country that he believed it to be.

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