Characters / The Newsroom

News Night

• Deadpan Snarker: Even a few of the minor characters are able to get some jibes in at each other and several newsmakers.
• Power Trio: Will, MacKenzie, and Charlie. They're the main decision makers of the team, all three of them are Large Hams, Hot-Blooded, refer to themselves as Don Quixote analogs, and have many, many mutual Berserk Buttons. They take turns disagreeing and reining each other in, but god help you if and when they all agree on something.
  • Will is The Spock, preferring to be pragmatic and practical despite a deep and well-buried idealism. At the same time, he is also Don Quixote to keep that allusion going.
  • MacKenzie is The McCoy, wearing her idealism on her sleeve and often trying to get Will to do the same. She is also the Dulcinea.
  • Charlie is The Kirk, balancing between the two. He'll try to do the right thing, but when push comes to shove, he can be ruthlessly practical as well. He is also Sancho Panza.
• Recurring Extra: The APs (Kendra, Gary, Tess, Tamara, and Martin) and the Tech Crew (Herb, Jake, and Joey) don't do much onscreen other than their jobs and a few witty one-liners.
• True Companions: Collectively, this is the team. They may fight and argue and yell at each other, but nothing comes between them, and they are dedicated to producing the news.

William Duncan 'Will' McAvoy (Jeff Daniels)

"I'm a registered Republican. I only seem liberal because I believe hurricanes are caused by high barometric pressure and not gay marriage."

The anchor and managing editor of News Night. Has an epiphany in the opening scenes of the series and delivers a controversial rant about how the United States is no longer the greatest nation on Earth at a university debate, sparking his quest to report hard-hitting news once again.

• Armor-Piercing Question: Being a former lawyer and a prime-time news anchor, Will is damn good at doling these out like candy.
• Bad Boss: Will prior to the beginning of the series. He's trying to fix that, though.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Oh, oh so much with MacKenzie. He deliberately antagonizes her personally and infuriates her professionally, but has a lot of unresolved, well-hidden feelings for her which he can't get over because of her betrayal.
• Berserk Button: He will flip out if you try to bully him or threaten people he cares about. He tells a tabloid reporter, "You touch my staff and you are walking into a world of hurt."
  • Also, a tabloid reporter claiming to be a journalist pisses him off to no end.
  • He goes absolutely Tranquil Fury when MacKenzie mentions that he may have forgotten that he was mad at her for a moment. He takes her cheating on him a lot more seriously than their Belligerent Sexual Tension might imply.
• Big Brother Instinct: Toward Sloan, and to a lesser extent the rest of his staff.
• Big Word Shout: "YOUTUBE! YOUTUBE!!"
• Bully Hunter: Will is revealed as one in "Bullies," though his instinct to attack bullies ironically turns him into an unwitting bully himself. He brings up bullying again in Willie Pete, when he's talking about Republicans who show disdain towards homosexuals in the military, calling said Republicans 'witless bullies and hapless punks.'
• Cluster F-Bomb: Has a tendency to go into one of these when he's particularly emotional.
• Closest Thing We Got: He was only a legal correspondent when he anchored for the first time. All the other anchors were grounded due to a national emergency, and he was the only person on hand to anchor. It was 9/11.
• Crusading Lawyer: He used to be good one, and if you listen to him interviewing his guests, it's like he's examining a witness, so he still retains the skills and styles of being a practising lawyer. Charlie specifically mentions he turned Will loose because he felt that America needed a lawyer.
• Dark and Troubled Past: His father was an abusive alcoholic who hit his mother, his brother and two sisters. Will first stood up to his father when he cracked a bottle across his father's face in 5th grade. His father later abandoned his family. It explains why Will is an aggressive Bully Hunter, why he's so protective of people close to him, and why he's much more sensitive to betrayal.
• Dating Catwoman: He sleeps with Nina Howard in Season 2.
• Establishing Character Moment: Will's infamous answer to the question "What Makes America the Greatest Country in the World?" where he refuses to give a genuine answer until he is prodded and then inspired by Mackenzie assisting him. He then goes on a massive takedown of the question where he even cites statistics to back up his claim. In a direct parallel to the answer he gave, Will can be a great and powerful source of journalistic good, but he has become complacent and needs help from important people in his life to get him back there.
• Expy: Will is an eloquent news anchor who tasks himself with lambasting idiot Republicans while trying to use his show to inform and inspire the public but is in trouble with the news company he works in and has a Hair-Trigger Temper that has given him a reputation for alienating friends and co-workers. If this sounds familiar, it's only because Aaron Sorkin did his initial research for this show by being an off-camera guest at Countdown With Keith Olbermann.
  • Will's story arc in the first season also parallels Don Quixote. He starts off as a fairly sensible, harmless man, but then he becomes possessed with antiquated ideals and mounts a massive crusade against seemingly imaginary monsters and foes, to the point that most people consider him delusional or insane, which he wilfully and gleefully ignores. Everybody else on his team is pretty much Sancho Panza or the donkey. He also quotes the movie/musical in the first season finale, which also mirrors Quixote in which he is shown a mirror (the New Yorker's magazine article) that reveals him for the fool that he is, and he has a Heroic BSoD before being rejuvenated with his old purpose after a visit by his Dulcinea (MacKenzie/Charlie/Nurse Cooper).
• Falling into the Cockpit: He'd only recently been hired as a legal news contributor at ACN when he happened to be the only reporter in the office when the Twin Towers fell on 9/11. Because traffic in New York was shut down due to security concerns, no other reporter could make it back and he was forced to anchor ACN's coverage for 16 hours straight and did an excellent job of it despite never having been on camera before.
• A Father to His Men: Will is very protective of his staff, and will go through great lengths to defend them at his own risk. This even extends to people who have only briefly worked with him such as Jim in the pilot and Khaled in episode 5.
  "He's one of our guys."
• Fox News Liberal: Will McAvoy is an Aaron Sorkin Republican. He's an old-school, moderate conservative who is extremely disgruntled by the current state of the Republican party.
  • In the first few episodes, he lambasts the idea of American exceptionalism in this day and age.
  • He mocks Sarah Palin, dedicates himself to taking down the Tea Party, and rakes Rick Santorum over the coals.
  • He's against the influx of immigrants, illegal or otherwise, citing US citizens losing their jobs to them. However, he paid for the transport costs of a man who was outed as an illegal immigrant by a newspaper article who used his real name.
  • In the fourth episode he lectures a woman against gun ownership and breaks off their date because she has one in her purse. Ironically, the woman is a Fox News Liberal herself. In "Bullies," he repeats his distaste for firearms.
  • In "Bullies," he argues passionately in favor of gay marriage and debates a gay Republican advisor of Rick Santorum.
  • He describes the phrase "sanctity of life" (in reference to abortion) as an empty platitude.
  • His atypical views for a Republican are frequently lampshaded. In the fourth episode, US Today repeatedly describes him as having recently become liberal. Each time Will hears this, he insists that he's a registered Republican. Later he snarks that the difference between him and other conservatives is that he doesn't think that hurricanes are caused by gay marriage. In "Bullies," his staff has no idea that he's a Republican and is shocked at the revelation.
  • When asked why he's a moderate Republican, he says that he grew up in such a small town that he didn't meet a Democrat until college.
  • Will knows that he gets called a RINO (Republican In Name Only) a lot, but then he turns it around and says that this is what he thinks about the leaders of the Tea Party, explaining real Republicans have reasonable, conservative beliefs in a prohibitive military, supporting social programs that work, eliminating those that don't, and free market capitalism, whereas the Tea Party leaders demand ideological purity, see compromise as weakness, and actively hate the U.S. government. As he puts it, they are 'The American Taliban'.
  • He is, however, completely okay with the U.S. government targeting its American citizens who are out-and-out terrorists like Anwar Al-Awlaki. He still goes on air requesting to see the memorandum that allowed the President to authorize the hit, though.
  • He is confused and probably a little offended whenever someone asks why he's a Republican as if that's something that needs an explanation, when no one asks anyone why they're a Democrat, citing their adherence to lawfulness sometimes suspends common sense.
  • This trope gets overtly addressed in "Election Night, Part 2" when Taylor Warren calls him out on it. Will insists he genuinely is a Republican, saying he believes in free-market capitalism, common-sense reality, and the need for self-defense against dangerous enemies. What he doesn't like is how the list of requirements to consider yourself one has expanded to include things such as homophobia, Christianity, denial of scientific facts and dismissal of intellectualism, the idea poor people have it easy, and - he says ultimately - that he has to hate the Democrats rather than just disagree with them.
  • Someone with Will's views being a Republican seems like Fox News Liberal, but in some ways, it's actually Truth in Television, as many Republicans with centrist views have been driven to the fringes in recent years as the party mainstream has become dominated by extreme culture warriors and the Tea Party. Will's views as expressed on the show are pretty similar to those of many of these now-obscure moderate Republicans, his positions on most issues seem like they could be based on Colin Powell or Fox News anchor Shepard "Shep" Smith, who has a reputation for refusing to put up with his colleagues and interviewees alike lying, obfuscating, or outright ignoring facts and who expresses his discomfort with the more extreme positions of the party quite regularly.
• Genius Ditz: While he's not as ditzy as MacKenzie, he didn't know he had a blog (and probably can't find it), has terrible social skills, and once couldn't get into his pants. This is the same man who can deliver breaking news without a prompter for an entire hour or while totally stoned off his mind.
• Hidden Depths: Is an accomplished guitarist, wrote speeches for Bush 41, and was a prosecutor with a 94% conviction rate, all before becoming the news anchor he is today. He also graduated college at 19, and law school at 21.
  • In Season 2, he is able to tell that someone type a word wrongly, even while sitting from across the desk, with the laptop monitor partly blocking his view.
• Hot-Blooded: When he's angry, frustrated, confused, determined, or even relieved, he is this.
• Interrupted Declaration of Love: In Season 1, he actually gave MacKenzie a very mysterious and heartfelt call that started with "Hey Mac, it's me. Look, I'm not just saying this because I'm high-" but we never got to find out the rest of the message as Nina Howard deleted the message. In Season 2, Nina Howard reveals that the message continues "I've never stopped loving you. You were spectacular tonight."
• Jade-Colored Glasses
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He screams and curses at his staff, forgets their names and is able (although not willing) to betray their trust and respect in the name of ratings, but he is very appreciative of loyalty, trusts his staff wholeheartedly, and once paid the ransom of a captured foreign correspondent when the company refused to pay. Then there was the time he anonymously paid for the transport costs for a man who couldn't drive to work because he was outed by a newspaper as an illegal immigrant.
• Kick the Dog: He is constantly doing this to MacKenzie, due to his unresolved issues with her betraying him.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He willingly lets himself get taken off the air for the 9/11 anniversary due to fears that his 'American Taliban' speech may remind viewers of the actual Taliban. What many seem to have forgotten is that he was the ACN anchor ON 9/11, being on air for 16 hours and all through the night to offer what little comfort he could to his audience, when he wasn't even supposed to be an anchor. He never complains about this injustice, although it clearly eats him up inside.
• Large Ham: He has no qualms about yelling and raging at pretty much anybody, pretty much anywhere. See also Chewing the Scenery and No Indoor Voice.
• Like Brother and Sister: Will and Sloan. He says outright that she's like his little sister.
  • In Season 2, he also has this relationship with Jenna Johnson, aka 'Sorority Girl'.
• Mushroom Samba: Claims to take marijuana due to the pain he still experiences from injuries sustained during his youth playing baseball, but totally misjudges his intake the night Osama bin Laden is killed and takes 2 whole cookies plus 1 Vicodin, leading Will to behave very... interestingly.
• Nice Character, Mean Actor: On his newscasts, Will is known most of all for his inoffensiveness. In person, he's got quite a temper, though he's more of a Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Will's first day on air was 9/11. This actually happened to Aaron Brown, whose first on-air broadcast was on 9/11. Like Will, he reported all day long, broadcasting for 17 hours. His program at CNN was called ''NewsNight with Aaron Brown,'' which aired from 2001-2005.
  • Certain similarities can also be drawn between Will and Jon Stewart. Despite the comedic tone of Stewart’s reports, they share a startling amount of similarities. They are both relentless in their pursuit of truth without agenda, focus heavily on criticising the way that news media in America works, comment heavily on the bizarre nature of political discourse, got into scraps with the corporate sponsors/allies of their show- the Koch brothers, gained reputations for behaving like prosecutors towards their guests, and strove to or achieved the status as one of the most trusted news voices in America.
• No Social Skills: At the beginning of the show, Will has no idea that people think he's an asshole. In episode four, he and Sloan talk about how they have no ability to mingle at a party. We also see him piss off several women in what were supposed to be romantic moments. In spite of all this, Will gets plenty of dates.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Played for laughs in "Election Night" when Will appoints himself in charge of morale despite almost everyone's job potentially being on the line. Both Charlie and Mac are astounded it's Will who's trying to stay cheery.
  Charlie: The unhappiest guy in the building is in charge of morale! WE! HAVE! GONE! TO! THE! ZOO!
  • When he proposes to MacKenzie he completely loses all of his eloquence (and dignity), and starts babbling like an idiot.
• Official Couple: Will and MacKenzie.
• Screw the Money, This Is Personal!: Will chose to reduce his annual salary by a million dollars just so he could change the contract and be able to fire MacKenzie at the end of every week.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Connections!: A benevolent version. Will is consistently shown to have connections with people in very high places that allow him to bypass red-tape and bullshit to get critical things done. He has a photo of him and Barack Obama on his desk/shelf, Joe Biden personally emails him to leak the execution of Osama bin Laden (Will casually mentions he used to play softball with the man), and when Khaled is kidnapped he's asked to "contact his highest source at the State Department", and when that fails to call "her husband". These people are implied to be then-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and her husband, former-President Bill Clinton.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Averted. He was willing to pay off the tabloid reporter to not run an expose on MacKenzie, but when the tabloid reporter called herself a "journalist" when he was going to sign the check, he chose the warpath instead.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: It may seem that MacKenzie is the one who put him on this path, but a long time ago when he was still a lawyer, Will received a commendation from a judge for announcing that he could win a case only because he could beat the public defender, but he was no longer convinced that the defendant was guilty.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: MacKenzie on the idealistic side, Will on the cynical one (albeit due to lost idealism).
• Strawman Political: While Will is on his crusade against the Tea Party, none of his guests are shown forming anything close to an informed defense of the Tea Party.
  • There's also the time when News Night couldn't get competent people to argue for SB1070, so instead they end up with three guests who are so incompetent that Will literally has to make their arguments for them.
  • Liberals aren't spared either. Just ask Shelly the representative of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
• Tranquil Fury: Will yells and cusses so loud the whole floor can hear him about once an episode, but when he's quiet and calm and pissed off? That's when you should really be afraid of him.
• Undying Loyalty: To Mac and Charlie. This comes back and bites him on the ass in "Red Team III".
• What You Are in the Dark: When Neal brings up a story about an immigrant who lost his driver's license and was thus unable to go to work, Will seemingly dismissive about it. Later on, Will arranges to secretly pay for the immigrant's taxi fare and rejects Neal's offer to write about it in the blog. He also pays for Kahlid's release when the corporate refuse to get involved, claiming to MacKenzie the corporate change their mind, though in this case she figured it out and instead let everyone in the office to chip in.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Will is called out by several people on how he treated the college sophomore during his rant in the pilot episode. He eventually realizes that his pursuit of the truth sometimes causes him to be callous to people who don't deserve it.

MacKenzie Morgan "Mac" McHale (Emily Mortimer)

"I've come here to take your IQ and your talent and put it to some patriotic fucking use!"

The executive producer for News Night and Will's ex-girlfriend who cheated on him about 3 years before the series started.

• Alliterative Name: As of the season 2 finale, she will officially be MacKenzie Morgan McHale McAvoy.
  Will: Yeah, that's not gonna work.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: She very clearly wants Will to forgive her and love her again, but is often exasperated by his pragmatic approaches to news ratings. Then there are the many times he plays mind games just to torment her.
• Buffy Speak: Despite being an award-winning journalist, Mac has a tendency to go into Shaped Like Itself and Meta Phorgotten.
  "Lucky for Will he's got the aim of a... sharpshooter who's been trained to shoot and... hit the target that..."
• Deadpan Snarker
• Ditzy Genius: MacKenzie is stated to be the best EP in the business, but has a number of foibles. She has to use her fingers to do basic subtraction. She's surprisingly clueless about technology for a reporter who's been in the field. She also admits that she knows absolutely nothing about economics.
• Idiot Ball: The second episode went a little too far in trying to establish the crew's inexperience that they came off Too Dumb to Live. Specifically, MacKenzie, who has been in Afghanistan for years, and doesn't know how to use a Blackberry.
  • Averted that she had just been taught how to use mass-emailing, something she probably rarely had to do working in near-isolation in the Middle East for the past few years.
• Green-Eyed Monster: MacKenzie gets extremely catty around Will's dates, despite the fact that she's in a three-month relationship herself.
• Honor Before Reason: According to her, she'd rather do a good show for a hundred people than a bad one for a million.
  Will: She's indifferent to ratings, competition, corporate concerns, and generally speaking consequences.
• Manic Pixie Dream Girl: In a professional (and personal) sense, this is what MacKenzie is to Will.
• Official Couple: MacKenzie and Will.
• Patriotic Fervor: She truly loves America and still believes very strongly in The American Dream. This usually comes as a surprise to most people who think she's British because of her accent.
• Shipper on Deck: Is constantly trying to ship Jim with Maggie and Don with Sloan.
  • Shipper with an Agenda: Initially, she encourages Jim to flirt with Maggie in order to make Don feel threatened, so that Don is compelled to help her transition into his job to impress Maggie.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: MacKenzie on the idealistic side, Will on the cynical one.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Mackenzie isn't afraid of anything except jellyfish, which is completely normal.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: When she sees Will passed out on the ground, blood in his mouth, she calls him 'Billy'.

James 'Jim' Harper (John Gallagher Jr..)

"I don't give a shit about liking me, or following me, or friending me or trending."

A senior producer who worked with MacKenzie in the Middle East and followed her to News Night. Develops feelings for Maggie.

• Amusing Injuries: In his very first appearance, he tripped over Mac's bags and fell down.
  • In another episode he got hit in the head twice in the space of fewer than 3 minutes, by the same glass door, both times by Maggie slamming it into his forehead. Then he started bleeding, and Maggie tries to clean his wound.
  • Later in the same episode he hit his head again while hiding under MacKenzie's desk.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Relentlessly deals a bunch of these while traveling on the Mitt Romney campaign bus, calling out on Romney's backpedaling and inconsistencies. It annoys the hell out of everyone on the bus.
• Betty and Veronica: He's the dorky Betty to Jerk with a Heart of Gold Don's Veronica for Maggie's Archie, until Don and Maggie break up in Season 2. He's also the Archie to Maggie (Betty) and Lisa (Veronica) in Season 1, and in Season 2, Hallie takes over the Veronica role after Lisa breaks up him.
• Big Damn Kiss: With Maggie at the end of Season 1.
  • And with Hallie in Season 2. It sticks better this time.
• Chick Magnet: Jim does pretty well for himself, attracting Maggie, Lisa, and Hallie. Between the three of them, there's usually at least two girls into him at any given time.
• Deadpan Snarker: Considering he has to interact with MacKenzie and Maggie quite often, his responses to their insanity is usually this.
• Full-Name Ultimatum: When Maggie is totally not screwing around, she calls him James Tiberius Harper. Not that that's his middle name.
• Girl on Girl Is Hot: He fantasizes out loud about Lisa and an airhead model kissing while they are both in the same changing room. While Maggie is standing next to him.
• Hidden Depths: Is a good enough guitar player to jam with Will (who is credited as a guitarist on a country album). Also knows basic first aid and psychotherapy techniques due to his time embedded in the Middle East.
• Insufferable Genius: While on the Romney campaign bus, Jim infuriates their guide and the rest of the reporters by constantly asking difficult, but still reasonable questions, which the guides do not appreciate because they only want media coverage, and not actual, investigative press coverage.
• The Lancer: He's this to MacKenzie.
• Legacy Character: In the Season 2 finale, Jim is named Sloan's executive producer if Will, Mac and Charlie had to resign, just like his mentor MacKenzie.
• Naïve Newcomer: What everyone on the Romney campaign trail thinks of him. Justified in that he hasn't done proper political reporting before.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Gives the chance to interview Romney to Hallie as a gratuitous show of sympathy after hearing her boss lambast her performance and sexually abuse her. Not only does Hallie pull a Don't You Dare Pity Me! me on him for patronizing her professionalism, but Taylor Warren lets MacKenzie in on it, causing her to pull Jim off the trail.
• Official Couple: With Hallie by the end of Season 2 and into Season 3. By the end of Season 3, he's finally gotten with Maggie.
• Only Sane Man: Again, with Mac and Maggie.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Gets one from Taylor Warren after she lets MacKenzie know Jim offloaded the Romney interview to Hallie.
  Taylor: I'm wouldn't say it was necessary, but it's what anyone would have done in my job. And the reason you don't know that is because you've never done this before.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Is Maggie's by the end of Season 1. It doesn't last.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: His main reason for letting Hallie take the Romney interview. He was righteously offended by her boss' attitude and felt she deserved better than his treatment. Sadly, the whole thing blows up in his face.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!: Gets a heavy dose of this on the Romney campaign bus when he stands up to the campaign media advisers. He tries to rally the bus into turning on Taylor Warren, but only Hallie and Stillman stand up with him. They all get kicked off the bus.
• Team Dad: Having covered wars for 2 years, Jim has considerable experience compared to the rest of the team (but still not as extensive as Will, Mac or Charlie). When Will and Mac are not in, he's in charge of the team, and he is usually the one to reprimand them if they screw up.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Gets one from MacKenzie when she finds out he offloaded the Romney interview to Hallie. She takes him off the campaign trail and calls him back to New York.
  • Hallie herself calls him out on it too, saying she doesn't need Jim to stand up for her or take a moral stance because of her boss.
• Workaholic: Works during parties and weekends or even at the end of a long day/week.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: His attempts of using hard-hitting journalism tactics on the Romney campaign trail gets him royally screwed over, because the campaign press managers don't have to release anything they don't want to, and Jim can't do anything about it.

Margaret 'Maggie' Jordan (Alison Pill)

"We're going to dispel the idea that there's something wrong with me."

An associate producer who is in an on-and-off-and-on-again relationship with Don, although she displays feelings for Jim.

• Accidental Misnaming: Will spends the entire pilot calling Maggie "Ellen".
• The Alcoholic: Develops into one to escape her ruined personal life in Season 2.
• Big Damn Kiss: With Jim in the first season finale.
• Break the Cutie: While staying overnight at the orphanage they were covering, they are attacked by cattle raiders. She was carrying a child whom she was fond of to safety when the boy was shot in the spine. She would have been killed if she had not been carrying the child.
• The Ditz: Maggie destroys a chance for an on-air interview with the Arizona governor, forcing last-minute replacements, blows the fact-check on Dominique Strauss-Kahn making them call their voiceover guy while he's eating at Benihana and misedits the Zimmerman tape in a near-slanderous way. If Jim didn't clean up for her constantly she would have been fired several times over. Lampshaded when Jim hears of all the screwups she made as Will's assistant.
  Jim: "How do you still work here?"
  • She is, however, the one who got the MMS inspector on the phone in the pilot, and she has managed to snag several minor, but incredibly important context-clarifying news items. The times she screwed up in the second season was likely due to the effects of her really fucked up personal life which led to/compounded her alcoholism.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: In the framing device scenes for Season 2, she's cut her hair short and dyed it red after something traumatic happened to her in Uganda.
  • Important Haircut: Turns out the reason she did was because a young boy she was protecting got shot and most likely shielded the bullet from her. She vividly remembers a light-hearted conversation with the boy's teacher about how blonde hair means she's trouble, but takes it to heart afterward and dyes her hair likely because of this.
• Humiliation Conga: The start of season two is brutal to Maggie. She loses Don, Jim and Lisa in quick succession due to their Love Dodecahedron, through a combination of a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero and general inability to accept her own responsibility in how their relationships played out. And then it gets worse.
• The Klutz: She is constantly bumping into things. She has even injured people with her clumsiness.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Goes to absurd lengths to track down the woman who put up the video of her ranting, in an effort to convince her to take it down. The woman not only doesn't take it down after promising to, but she herself goes to great lengths to track down Lisa - the person Maggie didn't want to see the video in the first place - to tell her about it, because she didn't like Maggie or Sloan's attitude towards her.
• Official Couple: With Don in season one. They break up in season two and by the end of season three, she's finally gotten with Jim.
• Little "No": When she sees that Jim was on the Sex and the City bus tour.

• Stop Being Stereotypical: Maggie reveals herself to be a Christian and goes on a tirade against Michele Bachmann's claims of running for President under instructions from God.
• Survivor's Guilt: She clearly feels responsible for what happened to Daniel in Uganda. If she wasn't holding him, she probably would have taken the bullet.
• Took a Level in Badass: In season 3, when she and Elliott are covering the Boston Marathon bombings live from the city, Elliott eats chicken salad containing walnuts, to which he is allergic. So Maggie — who had, it must be noted, gotten absolutely everything right up to that point — has to go on air in his place. She knocks it out of the park, impressing everyone at ACN from Charlie on down.
• Will They or Won't They?: With Don and Jim at the same time. She's with Jim by the end of Season 3
• You Did Everything You Could: Jim gives one of these to Maggie when he tells her that the death of Daniel was not her fault.

Neelamani 'Neal' Sampat (Dev Patel)

"I kept telling my colleagues and my bosses that the Internet is user sensitive, just like most things, and I watched from a thousand miles away while you proved that."

Writes Will's blogs and scans the Internet news feeds. Covered the London Underground bombing with a cellphone.

• Beware the Nice Ones: Flies into a rage while watching a video of Rush Limbaugh mocking captured foreign correspondents after Khaled, the stringer he recruited, had been captured, and broke two fingers punching (and breaking!) the computer monitor.

• Butt-Monkey: No-one ever seems to listen to poor Neal, even when he has legitimate story ideas, and everyone has a habit of arguing around his desk, acting as if he's not even there. In the episode News Night with Will McAvoy, MacKenzie has this exchange with him after he tells Will someone's trending him on Twitter because he brushed them off:
  MacKenzie: I know this isn't your fault, but I really do hate you anyway. I don't care that it's irrational. It is what it is; tonight, I root for your failure.
  • It gets worse in "Election Night" when he's being hounded by both Sloan and Mac to do ultimately minor personal favors in the middle of the election coverage.
• Put on a Bus: In season 3 Neal goes on the run after committing espionage and a major plot is Will trying to guarantee he can safely return without being arrested. He returns in the series finale.
• Only Sane Man: Seemingly the only person on the News Night team without relationship problems, or is at least able to keep them out of the workplace.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: On his return from Venezuela in the series finale, Neal gives an awesome one of these to the Jerkasses who had been doing his job badly while he was away. Since he was out of the country because he was wanted by the FBI, and because he delivers it more out of sorrow and disappointment than out of rudeness, they shut up, look contrite and start taking orders from him.
• Really Gets Around: In season one, Will's email interrupts him in the middle of sex. Then, he watches in despair as Jim's inability leave work at work drives away the women who sat next to them in a bar. In season two, Jim even comments about it to Hallie.
  Jim: Neal's always just getting over someone. He calls it "going home in the morning."
• Running Gag: Neal's obsession with doing a news story on Bigfoot in episode four. His obsession with the paranormal quickly becomes a recurring character trait.
  • Whenever Maggie and someone else are arguing, it is always right by where Neal is working, or where he can clearly hear what should be a private conversation.
  "Excuse me! This isn't soundproof glass!!"
  • Everyone depends on him to solve relatively minor issues, even with it conflicts with real work. It's driving him up the wall.
  "Can we just decide who my boss is once and for all?... This always happens and it only happens to me!"
• Stop Being Stereotypical: In the first episode, Jim tries not to peg him as the typical Indian computer guy but Will calls him out on it. Turns out he's the news scanner and writes Will's blog... but he's also really good with computers, basically the go-to tech guy in the team.
• Took a Level in Badass: Went from the tech guy trying to report bigfoot stories to uncovering a damning covert operation by the U.S. government (for real this time) and being hunted by the FBI.

Sloan Sabbith (Olivia Munn)

"Don't pretend that you don't know that most people only watch ten minutes of news. The first ten minutes."

An economist with two PhDs, but chose to work as a journalist at ACN instead of making a lot more money as an analyst.

• Alliterative Name
• All Love Is Unrequited: In "The Greater Fool", it's revealed that she has feelings for Don. Though she's his Romantic Runner-Up in season one, they eventually get together by the end of the series.
• Asian and Nerdy
• Berserk Button: Sloane is touchy about the size of her butt. She's open to the idea of Neal criticizing her in order to pose as an internet troll, then flies into a rage when he suggests talking about her butt. Afterwards, she demands that he reassure her that it's not big.
  • She's also sensitive about people talking about her being fat in general.
  • "If I can balance my checkbook, why can't the government balance the budget?" She is completely sick of that analogy.
• Big Damn Kiss: Plants one on Don smack in the middle of the control room in "Election Night: Part II".
• Ditzy Genius: Will criticizes her lack of judgment and says that she's supposed to be the smartest person in the newsroom due to her two doctorates. She counters that she's good at economics, not other things.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: She assaults the ex-boyfriend who posted naked pictures of her online.^note It's known as "revenge porn", it's called that in-universe, and it is recognized as a form of sexual abuse and a crime today. In all fairness, he did deserve it.
• Geniuses Have Multiple PhDs: Sloan Sabbith's two Ph.Ds (one of which is from Duke) help establish her a highly promising financial analyst at her relatively young age.
• I Love You Because I Can't Control You: Implied to be the reason why she fell in love with Don. He was probably the first person to not only not be intimidated by her gorgeous looks and high IQ, but he also called her out on her bad reporting, her sense of entitlement, and her insults to his anchor.
• Like Brother and Sister: Will and Sloan. Will says outright that she's like his little sister.
• Ms. Fanservice: Sloan is reluctant to accept her position because she fears being used as such. MacKenzie admits that she'd be passing over better-qualified economists because she's got great legs, but ultimately insists that she's being hired for both her credentials and her looks.
  Sloan: "Do you want me to do pole-dancing while I explain subprime mortgages?"
  Mackenzie: "If you think it would help. Look, I wouldn't offer this to you if I didn't think you were qualified."
• Nerd Glasses: Sloane occasionally wears a pair to remind us that she's a nerd.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • There was that one time when she spoke untranslated Japanese on American network news and caused TEPCO to deny their radiation leakage problem even further.
  • The bigger kicker is in the Season 1 finale where she suggests that Don propose to Maggie, just before she reveals that she has feelings for Don.
  • Averted in Season 2. She thinks she may have leaked that Will wasn't sick on the 9/11 anniversary, but it was somebody else. And Nina pulled the story in the first few minutes of the episode anyway.
• Noodle Incident: She set the Treasury Secretary on fire. To show the other Cabinet members that she could.
• No Social Skills: Sloan, herself, says that she has no understanding of human interaction and only understands economics.
• Official Couple: With Don.
• Open Mouth, Insert Foot: Sloan has the tendency to say some really inappropriate things at the worst possible time. And not in the sense of Brutal Honesty, just when the situation requires it the least.
• Precision F-Strike: When offered to become a star in exchange for hosting a dumbed down version of the Republican Presidential debate, her response is a simple "Fuck you."
• Romantic Runner-Up: With Don at the end of Season 1. It doesn't last.
• The Smart Guy: Has two PhDs in Economics, and speaks fluent Japanese.
• Strong, but Unskilled: A rare, intellectual example. Sloan has more IQ points than any three other staff members combined, but when she's put on the spot, like during a panel or an off-the-cuff interview, she tends to put her foot in her mouth, unlike Will, who eats interviewees for breakfast.
• Undying Loyalty: Turns down much more lucrative jobs out of the love she has for what she's doing. Also respects the hell out of Will, often seeking his approval and advice on journalism.

Kendra James (Adina Porter)

A booker for News Night. Is smarter than Gary and drives him crazy.

• Hidden Depths: Got double 800s on her SATS, and is apparently a crack chess player.

Gary Cooper (Chris Chalk)

An associate producer and booker for News Night. Not afraid of criticizing Obama, which Kendra hates.

• Ascended Extra: Gary starts to get way more screentime than any of the other staffers at ACN as the series goes on. During season 2 he's the one that goes with Maggie to Africa and in season 3 he is the only non-main character to be at the office when the FBI raids ACN.
• Always Someone Better: Sees Kendra as this.
• Almost Famous Name: Gets this a lot, thanks to being a namesake to Gary Cooper. invoked
• The Dandy: He tends to talk about the flatness of his abs and the smoothness of his skin with a little too much confidence.
• Really Gets Around: A conversation with Don in front of the new HR manager reveals that Gary has been sleeping around with various female staffers to the point where one of them is accusing him of exploiting her for writing opportunities.

Tess Westin (Margaret Judson)

An associate producer for News Night. Slightly senior to Tamara by virtue of the fact that she was hired in the morning while Tamara was hired after lunch on the same day.

Tamara Hart (Wynn Everett)

An associate producer for News Night. The second least senior associate producer (the most junior being Maggie).

• The Ditz: Probably the biggest one in the team, considering she thought Christian Bale was an Australian actress who appeared in Spider-Man. She's still a competent newsperson, though.

Martin Stallworth (Thomas Matthews)

An associate producer for News Night.

• The Ditz: So many examples. Such as accidentally forwarding Mackenzie's email to corporate instead of deleting it. Or thinking that the fat tax was taxing people for being overweight (it was for saturated fat).

Herb Wilson (John F Carpenter)

The Director of Photography for News Night.

• Mission Control: He coordinates what goes onto the viewers' screens in the control room, and his baritone is the one that counts down the show.

Jake Watson (Charlie Weirauch/Brian Huskey)

The technical director for News Night.

• Tragic Keepsake: Keeps an FDNY cap in his drawer, and wears it when Will reports that Osama bin Laden has been killed.

Joey Phan (Trieu Tran)

The graphics producer for News Night.

• Heroic BSoD: Had a minor one when he had to put up the graphics stating Gabby Giffords was dead.

Jennifer 'Jenna' Johnson (Riley Voelkel)

The college student at Northwestern University who asked Will that fateful question.

• Butt-Monkey: She's not only the most junior staff and therefore gets ordered around by everyone, Will constantly pokes fun at her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Her low rank and innocuousness were instrumental in relaying Will's message (disguised as a dinner menu) telling Neal to start running from the FBI.
• Dumb Blonde: More young and inexperienced than dumb in her first appearance. She gets a lot better.
• Embarrassing Nickname: Will always be known as "Sorority Girl".
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: "You have been nothing but bad news since you raised your hand at Northwestern."
• Took a Level in Badass: Ends up working for News Night in the Season 1 finale.

ACN and AWM

Charlie Skinner (Sam Waterston)

"You know what, kiddo? In the old days of about ten minutes ago, we did the news well. You know how? We just decided to."

Director of the News Division for the Atlantic Cable News network, and an old friend of Will's.

• The Alcoholic: While never directly stated, Charlie is seen drinking a lot of bourbon.
• Awesome by Analysis: There have been a number of times that he has been able to deduce the truth by just paying attention to a few choice words.
• Batman Gambit: In the first episode, he knew that Will's staff had deserted him and deliberately brought in MacKenzie to be News Night's executive producer without informing Will to get Will to start reporting the news again. Also in the 1st season finale he completely played Leona and Reese into confessing that Reese had ordered the hacking into Mac's phone to spy on Will, using nothing more than a tape recorder and a recipe for beef stew.
• Benevolent Boss: Charlie is a really nice guy and who backs Will up all the way and pushes him to do a better job with his hard-hitting journalism. He's also got a manipulative streak, which he uses to promote the good of the show and his employees.
  • Downplayed slightly in season two. He's still a generally good guy, but he takes Will off the 9/11 anniversary broadcast to keep the peace after the 'American Taliban' debacle with the Tea Party, showing he's more willing to play it safe
• Berserk Button: Imply that Will is incompetent or insult Will, and he will scream in your face and threaten to beat the crap out of you. Also, mess with any of his staff, or bungle catastrophically and you will feel his unbridled wrath.
• Beware the Nice Ones: As mentioned, Charlie is a really nice guy, but his rage process usually works in inverse with Will's. He starts off nice, but push him too far and you will be shocked at how this funny old man in a bowtie will scream in your face to the point that Will (who is likely to have been raging not 3 seconds ago) has to step in to break the fight.
  Will: You know when you're grumpier than I am we've switched roles.
• Cool Old Guy
• The Chessmaster: See aforementioned Batman Gambit.
• Hot-Blooded: Even more so than Will.
  Charlie: Don, I'm a marine! I will beat the shit out of you, I don't care how many protein bars you eat!
• Honor Before Reason: Even when being faced by a lawsuit and naming him might take some heat off of ACN, Charlie refuses to give up Shep as the inside source that falsified documents and fed him a bogus war crime story.
• Killed Off for Real: Suffers a fatal heart attack in "Oh Shenandoah" after furiously yelling at Sloan.
• Large Ham: He's probably the only one who can and will outshout Will.
• The Mentor: Charlie may not look like much, but he's not some crazy uncle of the team. He easily has the greatest journalistic experience amongst all the staff, and even Will and MacKenzie sometimes defer to his wisdom.
• Threat Backfire: When he goes to threaten Reese after finding out he leaked Will's stepping down from the 9/11 broadcast to Nina, he pulls out the recording device they used when confronting him about the phone hacks. Turns out he forgot to hit record during that conversation.
• Semper Fi: Was a Marine and an embedded reporter in Vietnam.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: Gives one to Shep Pressman, his Operation Genoa informant when Shep reveals he falsified his info to incriminate News Night after his son was fired from there and died from a drug overdose.
  Shep: You didn't step in.
  Charlie: He deserved to be fired.
  Shep slaps Charlie.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Charlie yells and cusses with Will back and forth, but he pushes Will to do the best news and defends Will behind his back.
  • He is this too with Leona Lansing, considering they've been friends for over 20 years, are nothing but brutally candid with each other even during high-pressure negotiations, and she never once threatens to fire him despite him openly insulting her son in front of her.

Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski)

"It's a person. A doctor pronounces her dead, not the news."

News Night's former executive producer who leaves for Elliot's new program on the network.

• Amicable Exes: With Maggie after they break up. Even with the circumstances of the breakup being that Maggie is in love with Jim, the two continue to work together at ACN and are friends.
• Amusing Injuries: Sprained his shoulder while trying to ram a door open in Episode 5.
  "It's a strong door!"
  • In Season 2 he fixes new tires to his chair and WD-40s them. He not only falls over backward twice, it makes him look like a midget behind his desk.
• Deadpan Snarker
• Evil Overlord: Don has been called a 'Master of the Dark Arts', and he claims, in a tone that it's difficult to tell if he's joking, that he 'bends his staff to his will'.
• Grand Romantic Gesture: Don fabricated an entire bidding war over a book Sloan put on auction that she was afraid no one would buy, then buys it himself, under a series aliases so she wouldn't figure him out. His plan is undermined when Neal figures out the aliases are movie characters, and Sloan sees a poster in his office containing one of the characters.
• Heel–Face Turn: He started off very antagonistic and unlikeable, fighting with Will and being quite jerkish to Maggie, but once he stood up to Reese, he became the unofficial Sixth Ranger of the team, helping and supporting News Night even though it's not his show.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Don's bitter at NewsNight 2.0 for the first couple of episodes because he doesn't have the clout to get away with running a show like NewsNight (who have the advantage of having Will as an anchor and being in a prime time slot), while he has to follow up after they pull a crazy, ratings-killing stunt, like insulting the Tea Party. He might be taking his frustration out in a poor manner, but he's absolutely right when he says he doesn't have a choice: he and his staff can get the ratings and viewership the executives want, or they'll be fired.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He's callous and pushes the people around him a little too hard, but he honestly cares about them and takes his job at being a good newsperson very seriously.
• Oblivious to Love: Had legitimately no idea that Sloan is in love with him.
• Official Couple: With Maggie in season one. After they break up in season two, he eventually becomes this with Sloan.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the more excitable, high-strung red oni to Elliot's blue.
• The Resenter: See Jerkass Has a Point. Don believes he could have done a "great" news show similar to Newsnight 2.0. But he can't since he doesn't have Will's autonomy. Jim making fun of him for doing stories about the McRib doesn't help matters. He gets over it as the first season progresses.
• Romantic Runner-Up: Played With. Don and Maggie end up moving in together at the end of season one, making Sloan and Jim their respective runner-ups. They break up, however, early on in season two, so they actually end up being each other's runner-ups in the long run.
• The Smart Guy: Will calls him this in the first episode. Clearly demonstrated when he brutally deconstructs Nancy Grace's segment on the Casey Anthony trial. He may not be a PhD like Sloan, but he's not an executive producer for nothing.

Elliot Hirsch (David Harbour)

ACN anchor for the 10 o'clock program, with Don as his Executive Producer.

• Beware the Nice Ones: Elliot may be less temperamental than Will, but don't think for a second that means he's going to stand around and let someone talk down to him. Don finds this out the hard way and is rendered speechless after.
• Informed Judaism: Don only mentions his Judaism to complain that he's not stereotypically pessimistic.
• Legacy Character: It has been mentioned more than once that Elliot will one day inherit Will's position as lead anchor.
• Nice Guy: At least in comparison to Will. This is probably why Don and a lot of Will's staff defected to his show.
• N-Word Privileges: When reporting on Rick Perry's hunting ranch, Elliot says it out loud and proud, on national television, the controversial name of said ranch: Niggerhead.
  • Aaaand Gilligan Cut to Don and Elliot in Charlie's office, with Charlie screaming his head off.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Is the calmer, less abrasive blue oni to Don's red.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Don. They may bicker and insult each other (at one point it wasn't actually funny), but after Don got Elliot beaten up in Cairo, their relationship has sort of turned into this.

Leona Lansing (Jane Fonda)

CEO of Atlantis World Media (AWM), the parent company of ACN

• Alliterative Name
• Big Bad: Technically an antagonist, as it is implied that she has principles and convictions but has to deal with politics, and so compromises her ideals for the greater good of the company. Downplayed in season 2, where she even gets a notable Pet the Dog moment.
  • Heel–Face Turn
• Characterization Marches On: In the first season Leona comes across as a corrupt business tycoon that is in the news for business opposed to being in the business for news, going as far as conspiring to smear Will's reputation so that she can fire him without any blow back to the network's reputation. After season 1, her character falls more into the line of Cool Old Lady, with her supporting ACN and its crew and claiming that she always loved News Night. A flashback in the series finale even makes it seem like she never had a problem with how Will wanted to start acting like a hard hitting journalist instead of the complacent anchor he had been before which conflicts with her Season 1 characterization.
• Hypocrite: Stumbles into the ACN bar while high as a kite after the Genoa hearings, almost an entire season after she tried to get Will fired for going on air under the influence of cannabis. Thankfully, it works to the team's advantage.
  • Admittedly, she never says she's high. She was just behaving really... ditzy.
• Iron Lady
• Meaningful Name: Her name is taken from two highly successful businesswomen- Real estate developer Leona Helmsley, and former Paramount Pictures CEO Sherry Lansing.
• Pet the Dog: She refuses to accept Will, Mack and Charlie's resignations after the Genoa incident, believing that Jerry Dantana is the one at fault, and promises to cover them with the best lawyers she can afford.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Despite the massive fallout, she recognizes that the entire Genoa incident was due to Jerry Dantana cooking up an interview, and the News Night team did their absolute best to report a credible story. She even goes so far as to admit even she might not have caught it, and refuses to accept their resignation.
• Screwed by the Network: Was the Big Bad of season one at least. invoked
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Charlie. They yell back and forth like they're going to kill each other, but she obviously has a great faith in the man.
  • Also with Rebecca Halliday.

Reese Lansing (Chris Messina)

"Every second you're not current, a thousand people are changing the channel to the guy who is."

President of AWM, and Leona's son.

• Big Bad Wannabe: Charlie blatantly disrespects him in front of the CEO (a.k.a. his own mother!) and could give less of a shit about Reese's attempts to exert his authority.
• Character Development: He becomes more on the side of Will and Company as the show progresses. But he makes it clear he can only protect Will and Company from the board if they are making money.
• Jerkass: Is only interested in ratings and viewership, and is constantly on Will, Mac and Charlie's asses to report entertaining fluff pieces instead of real news.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Progresses to this by Season 3. In his own words, he's a "douche on the side of the angels".
• Jerkass Has a Point: While he's far more interested in ratings than content, Will, Charlie, and Mac agree, despite themselves, to start covering Casey Anthony's trial when he informs them that they lost half their veiwers in a single week by not covering it. When Mac tries to defend their position by claiming that she's in business with the viewers, not the advertisers like Reese, he responds that they just lost the viewers' business.
• The Dragon: He is this to his mother.
• Momma's Boy: It's made pretty clear throughout the series he sucks up to his mother's favor a lot, but the most notable moment is when Charlie comes to him about filing the court settlement on him, Will and Mac. When Reese says he's tried everything in his power to do so, he admits he can't because his mother won't let him.
• The Reveal: The second episode made it seem Reese only has a job in the ratings department. We don't find out he is the President of AWM (and the CEO's son) until episode three.
• Smug Snake
• We Used to Be Friends: With Lucas Pruitt.

Nina Howard (Hope Davis)

Gossip columnist for TMI, AWM's tabloid magazine. Will initially tries to hit on her, but is repulsed by the fact that she is dedicated to reporting gossip and sleaze. Later on turns into a minor antagonist whom Will verbally bitchslaps.

• Bullying the Dragon: "Hey, we're journalists."
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Will's utter and thorough verbal ownage of her, which also killed off her chance to extort $50,000 from Will.
• Dating Catwoman: Sleeps with Will in season two.
• Heel–Face Turn: In the first season finale. In Season 2, she actually sleeps with Will, even after she knew he and MacKenzie still had feelings for each other.

Jerome 'Jerry' Dantana (Hamish Linklater)

The Senior Producer from ACN's DC bureau, Jerry Dantana joins the News Night team while Jim goes off to follow the election trail. Jerry is integral in sparking the crew's investigation into Operation Genoa.

• Batman Gambit: After being fired from ANC, he puts down Don as a reference on his resume in hopes that Don will say something libelous about Jerry so he has an excuse to further seek repatriations. It pans out exactly as he wanted.
• Hate Sink: From his debut episode, there's almost nothing endearing attributed to Jerry. He immediately starts trying to make a name for himself at ACN by pushing his own agenda. He butts heads with the other staff constantly and talks down to naysayers in the Red Team meetings. Then, perhaps most egregiously, he doctors interview footage for the Operation Genoa story which destroys ACN's reputation. To put a cap on it all, he sues ACN for making him a "scape goat", despite the fact that the entire Genoa fiasco was his fault.
• Intrepid Reporter: What he thinks he's being by investigating and exposing Genoa. Sadly, he compromises his journalistic ethics while doing so.
• Jerkass: Doesn't take criticism very lightly.
• Never My Fault: He sues News Night for unfair dismissal under the pretense of not investigating the Genoa story well enough, despite the fact he was the one pushing for it and he doctored the footage of a crucial interview.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: His actions not only cost him his job, but tarnished News Night and ACN's reputation.
• Old Friend: Of Mac's.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: More or less his reason for doctoring the footage of the Stomtonovich interview. He believes Genoa was real and needed to be brought to light at any cost.
• What the Hell, Hero?: From Mac when she finds out he doctored the footage of the Stomtonovich interview.

Others

Lisa Lambert (Kelen Coleman)

Maggie's friend and roommate. Maggie sets her up with Jim in season one.

• Alliterative Name
• Brainless Beauty: She has serious worries that she is this, as she has been dating guys who make her feel stupid. After their breakup in a The Bus Came Back moment, Jim points out to Lisa that he never saw her this way.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Turns extremely vicious when she sees the video of Maggie confessing her feelings for Jim.
• Girl Next Door: Don describes her as this in her debut.
  Lisa: "Next door to what?"
• Hypocrite: Lisa conveniently forgets that she was more-or-less aware of the entire situation between Jim and Maggie before she got involved, later tried to leave the situation once she realized several additional particularities, and then voluntarily re-entered the situation. Then again, Maggie was her best friend before she made out with Lisa's boyfriend, neither Maggie nor Jim told Lisa about it, and Maggie lied to Lisa's face when she felt that something was off between her and Jim and told her it was nothing.
• Jerkass Has a Point: She was entirely correct when she tore into Maggie about how selfishly Maggie handled the situation with Jim.
  Lisa: "Get really bad for who? Who do things get bad for? We're talking about you right? Fuck Don, fuck Lisa."
• Romantic Runner-Up: At the end of Season 1, she and Jim are still 'together', although Jim still has feelings for Maggie, but is too nice a guy to break up with Lisa.
• Tranquil Fury: Her "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards Maggie was as calm as it was vicious.

Wade Campbell (Jon Tenney)

An Assistant District Attorney, Congressional candidate and MacKenzie's most recent boyfriend.

• Crusading Lawyer: He tries to get Will to report on a case he's working on to clamp down on bank fraud, whose lawyers outnumber, outgun and outspend the government team.
• Jerkass: Was attempting to use his relationship with MacKenzie to boost his profile in a Congressional bid. When she refuses to cooperate, he tells her she 'wasted his time'.

Kaylee (Natalie Morales)

Neal's girlfriend. Her father was a victim of the 9/11 attacks.

• Hidden Depths: Has the ability to play Guitar Hero while blindfolded.

Lonny Church (Terry Crews)

Will's bodyguard assigned to him after Will receives death threats.

• No Badass to His Valet: Is one of the few characters completely unfazed by Will's belligerence.
• Put on a Bus: Lonny has been completely absent in Season 2, as has the whole death threat storyline.
• Scary Black Man: "There's nothing I can do about being big and black at the same time."
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: He's big, he's black and he can out-sass Will any day.

Dr. Jack Habib (David Krumholtz)

Will's current therapist, and the son of Will's (deceased) original therapist.

• Armor-Piercing Question: Got Will to stop pussyfooting around his psychological issues by asking "What are you fucking around with me for?"
• Deadpan Snarker: Probably one of the bigger ones of the series (which is no mean feat), seeing as how he can match and defeat Will at his own game.
• Precision F-Strike: "What are you fucking around with me for?"
• Underestimating Badassery: Will thinks he can just walk into the clinic and grab a prescription for sleeping pills and is totally unprepared for Jack to quickly pick apart Will's emotional and psychological issues when Will is already an expert at hiding his emotional and psychological issues.
• Teen Genius: He's 29 now, but he took over his late father's therapy practice 2 years ago, claims to have 'done everything young', and that there's no Doogie Howser joke he hasn't heard.

Brian Benner (Paul Schneider)

A journalist Will brings in to write a story about News Night 2.0. He's also Mackenzie's ex-boyfriend— she cheated on Will with him for 4 months.

• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Explained As You Know style by Will: he was a well-respected writer at Newsweek and when it was sold, invested his buyout money in a failed start-up. Now, he has a blog.
• Insistent Terminology: Mac always insists that she cheated on Will with him, when Brian feels that she cheated on him with Will instead.
• Jerkass Has a Point: As much of an asshole that he is, Brian is rightfully upset and vengeful with Mackenzie upon finding out that he was the side piece that she was cheating on Will with. Brian didn't realize that was going on and when he does find out, Mackenzie never really tries to apologize for using him.
• Small Role, Big Impact: He only appears for a few episodes in the first season but his relationship with Mackenzie in the show's backstory is the main source of conflict for Will and Mackenzie's relationship issues over the first two seasons. Furthermore the story he ends up writing on Will is scathing enough that it almost causes Will to overdose and puts him in the hospital for the season 1 finale.

"Late For Dinner" a.k.a Solomon Hancock (Stephen McKinley Henderson)

An anonymous source who first leaks to Charlie that Osama bin Laden has been killed 90 minutes before the White House tells ACN to prepare for an announcement by the President. Later reveals himself to be the Assistant Deputy Director of Technology and Systems Cryptology and Mathematics at the NSA, wanting to blow the whistle on an NSA global data mining initiative that has been spying on Americans. Also claims to have evidence that Reese has been ordering phone hacks (à la News of the World), and has been using them in the campaign to discredit Will.

• Killed Off for Real: Jumped off a bridge in the first season finale after being told that he wasn't a credible source for the NSA wiretapping story, coupled with the fact that he had been estranged from his own children for what must have been years.
• Mysterious Informant: Is this to Charlie.
• Properly Paranoid: Removes the battery from Charlie's phone even when they are in a library with walls 3 feet thick.
• Spy Speak: Hilarious averted when Charlie first meets up with him and mistakes some other guy wearing a carnation on his coat to be his secret contact. Also introduces himself as Deep Throat to Charlie at first, but Charlie refuses to call him that, referring to Deep Throat as a 'sacred pseudonym'.
• The Movie Buff: Tends to quote a lot of movies in his conversations.
• Truth in Television: The thing he's trying to leak? It's real. It was leaked in real life about a year later.

Hallie Shea (Grace Gummer)

A reporter on the Romney bus tour that Jim meets. They end up dating by the end of season two, though they breakup mid-season three.

• Belligerent Sexual Tension: You can almost cut the air between Jim and Hallie with a knife when they first meet up.
  • Slap-Slap-Kiss
• Defrosting Ice Queen
• Knight in Sour Armor: Her true passion is women's rights issues, even though she's saddled to a crummy job trailing the Romney campaign.

• Tsundere: She starts off being quite short with Jim most of the time, before mellowing out when she starts developing feelings for him.

Rebecca Halliday (Marcia Gay Harden)

A litigator defending ACN from a wrongful termination suit following the Genoa debacle.

• Awesome by Analysis: She manages to piece the Genoa incident together over the course of her interviews (we're talking about an incident that took several months to materialize), and ferret out a lot of the uncomfortable personal details along the way.
• Deadpan Snarker: She often counters the News Night staff being very tense and occasionally hostile with jokes and weird tangents.
• Hello, Attorney!: Self-described as "liquid sex". She isn't wrong.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: When Will gets snarky, she gets snarkier, and he counts it a major victory when he does manage to out-snark her.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Surprisingly, with Leona Lansing. The two of them snipe and gossip with each other like college roommates.

Taylor Warren (Constance Zimmer)

Mitt Romney's Press Secretary whom Jim encounters while he's covering the campaign trail. She's later fired from her position and is recruited to cover the 2012 Presidential Elections at ACN.

• Defeat Means Friendship: Not that she was defeated by anyone at ACN, but after she was fired as Romney's press secretary, she gets hired by ACN to be a commentator alongside Will during the 2012 Presidential Elections. She was also looking to hire Jim, the guy who was nothing but annoying and belligerent during the campaign trail, for her new media consulting firm.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: She stonewalls Jim's questions at every single turn while on the campaign trail. Jim is a little Wrong Genre Savvy to notice that he's in the wrong place to be an intrepid reporter and that Taylor is actually just doing her job.
  • When Jim gives Hallie an exclusive interview with Mitt Romney instead of taking one for ACN, Taylor notifies Mac and gets Jim booted off the trail, and out of Taylor's hair once and for all.
• Undying Loyalty: She is fiercely loyal towards the Romney campaign and the Republican party, despite being fired as Romney's press secretary,

---