Critics do not like The Newsroom. Few people do, actually, what with its heavy-handedness and unnecessary love triangles and clumsy depiction of women (this could go on), but critics are especially irked by Newsroom's general Sorkin-ness. And yet, as Forbes discovered, HBO has been running print ads featuring GUSHING reviews about how "intelligent" and "inspiring" the show is. How is that possible? Well...
Salon’s Willa Paskin is quoted calling The Newsroom “captivating, riveting, rousing.” Here’s what she actually wrote: “The results are a captivating, riveting, rousing, condescending, smug, infuriating mixture, a potent potion that advertises itself as intelligence-enhancing but is actually just crazy-making.” (Via)
That's how. HBO is now doing what movie studios have done for decades: picking choice words from often-negative reviews to provide out-of-context, positive blurbs for their product. (For instance, "Nazis were terrible subhuman creatures who never did anything good and should have been nuked off the face of the Earth" could very easily be changed to, "Nazis were...good.") So, I decided to do something similar. I looked through the IMDb pages for 10 different widely despised shows, and cherry-picked words and sentences from fan-written reviews for revised posters. Even something as awful as Work It can appear to be loved if phrased correctly.
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And that’s why i don’t read reviews. I watch something and make up my mind, or if I’m unsure I watch a second episode and make up my mind.
Is there a TV version of Rotten Tomatoes? That might be worthwhile because a quote like that with a “splat” next to it would definitely get you to wonder how the review could be negative, driving traffic to the reviewer’s site.
Check out the Onion’s AV Club. In stark contrast to other Onion stuff, everything on there is actually written in earnest, and their reviews are terrific. I tend not to let reviews sway my decision to watch something (unless they’re overwhelmingly negative), but it’s nice to know what you’re getting into.
Yeah, the AV Club is terrific, and for TV, so is Alan Sepinwall at HitFix.
You don’t read reviews because out-of-context quotes from them are used for advertising? Uh-hu…
It’s weird how I loathe Guy Fieri with every ounce of my being but I will watch 3 straight hours of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives at the drop of a hat.
Same here… It’s the food, I would actually kill to try half or more of the stuff on that. If I was lucky, it would Fieri I’d have to kill in order to do so. #dreams
Newsroom won’t be rousing until they break out the HBO secret weapon: Titties.
You left the “a” off “arousing.”
Sorkin is too classy for that. He calls them mammary gland covers.
They came close! And what a sweet time it would’ve been. Kelen Coleman is an attractive young lady.
Man, that’s shady. If I was a critic and my reviews got misquoted like that, I’d be telling EVERYBODY.
Also, didn’t some show use a bunch of Twitter quotes in its commercials? That’s just shy of being like, “Well, my Aunt Edna likes it!”
I think it was the last Adam Sandler movie that used twitter quotes
plizzow @plizzow
men at work on tbs!
HOMEBOYS FROM OUTER SPACE!!! I was a Fresh Off the Boat Ukrainian 11yr old kid when this show was on and I found it fascinating. I’d like to think I have much better taste now.
Us too.
“The Newsroom is a show, and it is on television!” – Perd Hapley
this blog is intimidated by the nature of this show and what its trying to convey
This is much ado about nothing. If the above Paskin quote is accurate, she is saying that parts of the show are “captivating, riveting, rousing”. This is not the same, imho, as your other examples of word twisting.
Unfortunately, there’s not a way to stop it. People will swallow anything that tells them that they should see what they want to see. I use the DVR as my reviewer – it doesn’t cost anything and I don’t feel bad bailing on a recorded show.
Why would anyone find watching a show about news entertaining? I just assumed it sucked and never gave it a chance due to having common sense.
You hit the nail on the head Dane Justin.Because of the shows content people with vested political interests will do their best to cut it down.Truth is it’s the best new show on HBO and it’s about time somebody did a show like this.I especially enjoyed last weeks episode when he was about to write a rather Ann Coulter-ish character a check and when she said ‘we’re all journalists’ he voided the check,tore her a new one and dared her fuck with him.That and they guy punching the screen while watching Rush Oxyhead doing his ignorant and annoying ‘nya nya nya’ bullshit.
I can’t believe that HBO would go against everything The Newsroom values about reporting the truth to try and pull a stunt like this! How ironic is that? It just goes to show that advertisements are a waste, since they never speak the truth; that’s why I’ve made strides towards eliminating them from my life! I upgraded to the Hopper DVR that comes with this cool feature, called the Auto Hop, which completely skips commercials on most primetime shows when activated, so I never bother with commercials anymore. A Dish coworker recommended it to me and I haven’t regretted it since! It’s just so surprising to me that a premium channel like HBO would go through such desperate lengths for boosted ratings!