Line #5 Series/TheNewsroom1996


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3	''The Newsroom'' (no, not [[Series/TheNewsroom that one]]) is a Creator/{{CBC}} SitCom created by and starring Ken Finkleman, running for three seasons between 1996 and 2005, which included the [[BreakingTheFourthWall fourth-wall breaking]] MadeForTVMovie ''Escape from the Newsroom'' (2002). It was screened briefly on Creator/{{PBS}} in the mid-2000s.
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5	The series centers around an unnamed Toronto television station (strongly implied to be a fictionalized version of the CBC's own CBLT) and its self-centered news director, George Findlay (Finkleman), who generally cares more about how he looks to the corporate higher-ups or which woman he wants to sleep with than about practicing good journalism. Jim Walcott (Creator/PeterKeleghan), the anchor for the program ''[[ShowWithinAShow City Hour]]'', is equally shallow but far less intelligent, while Karen Mitchell ([[TheDanza Karen Hines]]), one of Findlay's segment producers, is the [[OnlySaneMan Only Sane Woman]] who calls out the foibles and ignorant prejudices of the rest of the cast.
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7	Shares a similar premise to the American ''Series/{{Lateline}}'' and the Australian ''Series/{{Frontline}}'', but is otherwise unrelated. Not to be confused with the Creator/{{HBO}} series of the same name.
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9	!!''The Newsroom'' (1996) provides examples of:
10	* TheAllegedCar: George's BMW, which frequently has deficiencies or damage that he constantly phones his car dealer about.
11	* AsHimself: Several real-life figures appear when they are interviewed on the newscast, including Creator/DavidCronenberg, Creator/AtomEgoyan, and Noam Chomsky, among others.
12	* BlackComedy: Season 1 ends with the cast celebrating Jim's victory in the provincial election, even though [[spoiler:Jim is still comatose from an assassination attempt]] and [[spoiler:he flatlines in the room with them just as the election is called]].
13	* DeadpanSnarker: Most of the cast.
14	* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: In Season 1, George deliberately gets Jim hooked on prescription drugs in order to force him out of his job as anchor so that his new co-host, Lindsay Ward, can take over the show. Then when Lindsay gets George barred from the newsroom, he uses deceptively-edited video of Lindsay consuming wine to portray her to the corporate brass as an alcoholic, which leads to her getting [[ReassignedToAntarctica shipped off to Winnipeg]].
15	* KentBrockmanNews: Jim Walcott is an ample source of this due to his ineptness:
16	** Jim puts on an act of being a born-again Christian and gives a one-sided interview to an ultraconservative, homophobic MPP in exchange for that MPP not releasing video of Jim soliciting a prostitute.
17	** Jim's brief career in the U.S. has him inundating his morning show segments with jingoistic and borderline-Islamophobic commentary.
18	* RoleEndingMisdemeanor: InUniverse. Jim loses his morning show gig in the U.S. after he is caught soliciting an underage prostitute.

Context Series / TheNewsroom1996