Unprofessional, Ineffective, and Weak: A Textual Analysis of the Portrayal of Female Journalists onSports Night

Print Versus Digital

“…Shattered Glass retold the real-life story of Stephen Glass, the reporter eventually caught plagiarizing stories in The New Republic and other magazines. Even producer Aaron Sorkin, who purposely attempted to depict journalists positively in The Newsroom , gave viewers an illustration of a newsroom more intent on spending time on personal and petty issues than uncovering and disseminating sports news in the sitcom Sports Night (Painter & Ferrucci, 2012) . However, regardless of how popular culture depicts journalists, these depictions can affect the public’s opinions (Ehrlich, 1997), which is why it remains important to study how popular culture presents journalists.…”

Market matters

“…Whilst the film presents a positive view of other journalists on the magazine’s staff, an academic analysis of the film argues it depicts an industry that cares more about good stories than the truth (Ehrlich, 2005). Aaron Sorkin’s Sports Night depicted a cable sports newsroom overflowing with a focus on the personal and not the professional, along with a set of borderline incompetent and overemotional producers in charge (Painter and Ferrucci, 2012). Matthew Ehrlich (1997) argued that whether the portrayal leans positively or negatively, fictional depictions of journalists can affect the public’s perceptions of the industry as a whole.…”

“…On Sports Night , Sorkin only occasionally gave viewers a glimpse beyond the newsroom and into the executive offices (Painter and Ferrucci, 2012). In Sports Night , Sorkin primarily focused on the interplay between the journalists working on the fictional sports show, but occasionally the conglomerate that owned the fictional channel broadcasting the show received a mention (Painter and Ferrucci, 2012). The journalists on Sports Night constantly worried about the conglomerate’s bottom line and eventually experienced a change in ownership.…”

Medium and Mediators: Tracing Collaborative Authorship

“…This young woman is exposed as being in error within the text, often on a technicality or due to a contrived faux pas. Following this public error of manners the misogynist protagonist must then be apologised to by the women in question [17]. This allows the Sorkin avatar to act benevolently whilst being redeemed for his own errors and mistakes by the nobility of his "work", whether as a President, news reader, writer or tech CEO [18].…”