An Interview with Ken Finkleman from The Newsroom II

APT's Donna Hardwick interviewed Ken Finkleman, writer and director of the APT Syndication series THE NEWSROOM II

Q: Can you give public TV audiences a sense of why you created this comedy series about a television news room? Why not a restaurant, law office or Wall Street?

A: When it started, which was now about seven years ago, I felt at the time that the American mainstream news — CBS, ABC, NBC — were very effective propaganda machines that promoted America's manifest destiny. These news departments strongly promoted the American way of life and the need for a narrative within a news story. In a sense there was this need to show America that, in fact, everything is alright. The news is supposed to look at the world through a completely clear lens, but American news does not look at the world through a clear lens. It looks at the world through the lens of this American myth and it fits its stories into that narrative. I can actually remember watching (American news reports) when John-John Kennedy went down in the plane. I remember they covered that story for about six or seven straight days, and on the day that they decided to wrap it up…Dan Rather actually cried.

Oh yeah, a tear actually came down his face. Now I was wondering, why didn't a tear come down his face in the beginning, or at the second day or third day? I mean, so there's Dan Rather embracing the mythology of the Kennedy's, the mythology of how they represent America. And there is Dan Rather crying for America on the news.

Q: This leads me to my next question. One of the major news stories in late 2004 was the 60 Minutes controversy before the Presidential election. This real-life drama screams for a fictional spin-off. What are your thoughts on what happened and CBS' reaction?

A: Shouldn't the story from 60 Minutes be: Why did George Bush go to war in Iraq? What was the agenda? And what is the agenda of Cheney? And what is the agenda of Haliburton? And what is the agenda of the people behind Bush who are supporting him financially to run for President? Those stories, they're not clear, they're chaotic. They don't have answers that are simple and easy and operate in sound-bites and have a nice narrative beginning, middle and end. What these stories do is they open a can of worms. And you can't shut the news off that night and go to sleep saying, "Ahhh, we've had a good news report tonight." You know? And America "goes to bed safe and sound and can sleep."

I think a huge story in America is this fact that the Bush administration refuses to allow photographs of the coffins that are coming back from Iraq. Why are they doing that? What are they trying to tell people? I mean, look at the number of people dying… and what the hell's going on? Why doesn't 60 Minutes take issue with that and try to get their minds around that? Rather than, the easy story that, "George Bush didn't report for duty…" Oh C'mon! Who gives a s---? You know? I mean, I'm not saying let the guy off the hook, but why is he different from any other guy? I'm glad he (Dan Rather) went down on that, you know why? He went down on his own bad impulses. Better you should go down fighting the real fight, rather than going down fighting - he deserves to go down for this because it's not the story. It's not the issue. It's not what's interesting and what's going on. And so, I'm glad.

Q: You are the executive producer/creator/writer/director and star of The Newsroom. Do you experience any inner conflict in the creative process?

A: Well, the answer to wearing all of those hats is that it makes the job a lot easier because you don't have to argue with anyone. The writer doesn't have to argue with the director or creator. The star doesn't have to argue with the producer because he's the same person. So what happens is that you get a singular vision. And it's a singular vision which — with art flaws — becomes human to people. I think that's what gives the show a curious feeling. Now I'm not saying that it's art, because it's not, but when you go into an art gallery and you look, you don't expect to see in an art gallery works that an artist is doing so that YOU will be satisfied, you're just looking at that artist's personal expression. What you really hope to get when you go in, is to be a witness to this personal expression that has been created by a person with these artistic talents, right? You're looking for that uncompromising personal expression aren't you?

That's what the show is. It is uncompromising. If the networks went through the scripts, the rewrites would be enormous and I never rewrite anything. I just do a first draft and I err on the side of intuition and flaws. I like flaws in the script, because when the scripts are flawless, one gets the feeling that they are micro-managed. There are hands of people all over them who have an opinion as to how something should be said or what should be said and what shouldn't be said. Then, when the writer incorporates all of those opinions, the show loses personality. The personal is filled with flaws and I like flaws. I like going on the set and shooting and then looking at the script and going, "Holy f---! What am I gonna do, why did I write that?" Or, "Who wrote that?" And then I think, "Oh my God it was me — what was I thinking at the time?"

Q: It has been a few years since The Newsroom originally aired on public television but many will remember the first season. What can they expect from the second season? And, why did you bring it back?

A: Oddly enough, when I looked at the shows after I finished them, I realized it didn't have a hell of a lot to do with the news. I realized that I've gone through a transformation about the news. One that was really was created by CNN. So I started watching, concentrating more on CNN after I originally did The Newsroom. Because my original impulse with The Newsroom was to satirize the news, to really go after the mainstream. I'm not as interested in the fringes as I am in the mainstream, because I think the great crimes are created in the mainstream, not on the fringes. I always thought of CNN as being "on the fringe." Then, towards the late nineties, CNN became the news station. So now it (CNN) becomes predominant, and then Fox News comes in, and then I start looking at it and I think well, it's now its own worst enemy because it is so transparently a joke. It's so transparent now that you can't satirize it. So I lost interest in satirizing the news and just went with the characters.

Q: So is this essentially the focus for the second season, the characters?

A: Yes, the second season is more about the characters and about what is on my mind. I'm thinking about different things. I'm thinking about love and death. And what's on my mind — having an affair, which I did, and death, which is pending. All these things [that happen] as you get older.

As a writer, director and producer, Ken Finkleman brings a unique quality to what he considers to be the infinitely malleable medium of television. Finkleman is known for the multiple Gemini award-winning series The Newsroom, Seasons I, II and III (CBC, PBS), Married Life (Comedy Central, Atlantis Films), Escape from the Newsroom (CBC), More Tears (CBC), Foolish Heart (CBC) and Foreign Objects (CBC).