America The Greatest Country

America is not the Greatest Country is the first episode of HBO’s new television series The Newsroom. A news anchor, Will McAvoy, is seated between a strong liberalist, Susan, and a conservative, Lewis, on a journalism panel. When asked to describe why America is the greatest country from a student in the audience the anchor envisions someone in the audience using cue cards telling him, “It isn’t.” This persuades him to give his true opinion, and the anchor continues with a speech about why he feels this way. Will McAvoy uses bipartisan journalism to give the audience the impression that his approach on the subject is unbiased to distract them from his anti-American argument.
The film begins with a rant between the characters on stage with …show more content…
Given the title of the series that this episode belongs to is “The Newsroom”, one can assume that its purpose is to inform the audience on a topic. The moderator allows a person from the audience to ask the question rather than himself so there will be no question he is using a bias approach. When asking their question each person gives their name and year in college. This shows the viewer that the audience is a group of college students, reaffirming the assumption that the purpose of this film is to …show more content…
Sharon and Lewis respond with very broad answers such as; diversity, opportunity, freedom and freedom. Before giving his answer to the student’s question Will insults both the liberalist and conservatives answers to again remain objective to both parties. After doing so he then continues to insult the student who asks the question by calling her a “sorority girl”, and adding, “If you happen to wander into a voting booth.” By saying this he offends not only the student, but any girl in a sorority by inferring that because they are in this group, they do not vote. McAvoy uses the technique of belittling those around him in order to make his answer seem more correct than their