The Newsroom only gets more and more powerful and moving as the first season progresses, tackling extremely controversial and important issues and events in the United States (while balancing relationships and character development for the audience to experience in the mix). In episode seven, the News Night team struggles to figure out what the president is going to announce after it’s announced that he’ll be making an announcement.
Yes, that last sentence was a fun sentence to write, but episode seven of The Newsroom ends up focusing on something that’s far from funny: the death of Osama Bin Laden.
After McAvoy and Jim have a ridiculously corny sing-along at a party to celebrate the one-year anniversary of “news night 2.0,” the mood is broken up by an email sent to the entire news team about President Obama preparing to make an announcement to the US. Just like in past episodes, every single person stops what they’re doing and shifts into high gear to try and figure out what the announcement will be so they can report about it before the president actually announces it.
Minus a sub-plot about an outside contact with some government organization getting in touch with Skinner and proving his worthiness by making him aware of the president’s intention to make an announcement, the majority of the episode focuses on what news is trust worthy and when to report what is believed to be true. Through a series of other stories being reported about Bin Laden being killed, the team pretty much assumes that that’s what has happened. However, due to the fact that Charlie once reported incorrect information when he was a reporter and human deaths were a result of that incorrect information, he refuses to allow ACN to air the news until a confirmation is given from inside the government.
As this is going on, Sloan, Don and Elliot, the reporter who was injured in during the Egyptian riots of a previous episode, are trapped on a plane that isn’t able to attach to a bay to unload passengers. As they receive word of what’s going on via smartphone emails and phone calls, they struggle harder and harder to find a way off the plane without causing a serious panic. The parts of the episode where these three try and negotiate with the stewardess are hands-down the funniest and most interesting. Not only does this sub-plot tackle the fact that there are reasons to a lot of these seemingly-ridiculous bureaucratic processes and rules (Don falling down after standing up on the plane), but it also explores the fact that a lot of people don’t understand that there are honest, hard-working, American faces and bodies behind the rigid workplace facades most people have.
In that sense, Don is taken aback when the pilot is called out of the cockpit to address his disorderliness. Don can only have respect for a man who serves the US in multiple senses, and he takes great pleasure in delivering the news that Osama Bin Laden was killed by American forces earlier that night (at that point in the episode, it was just about confirmed with multiple news networks reporting on it).
A similar occurrence takes place in the news room when two police officers who were escorting Terry Crews’ character to McAvoy’s office (to make sure that he really was with a personal security agency) are addressed as more than just semi-steriotypial, brute cops. McAvoy whispers to Crews the news about Bin Laden, and in turn tells him that he should be the one to tell the police.

Charlie discusses the pros and cons of announcing that Osama Bin Laden was killed before the president actually announced it.
I find it strange that the death of someone (more so the fact that he was shot and killed by American soldiers) can bring such a large amount of people together. Usually deaths tend to have a semi-negative effect on people, but since this is Osama Bin Laden, the man who decimated hundreds of American citizens in an attack on our own soil, it has a reverse effect.
In Matt Richenthal’s review of episode seven on the TVFanatic website, he argues that this episode is one of those episodes that’s either loved or hated. “From the perspective of a television critic, and not a native New Yorker reflecting on everything associated with that date, it all felt unbelievably cheap.” Richenthal feels that the emotional story tactics in this specific episode of The Newsroom really don’t have much to do with the show at all. If viewers feel emotional about Don informing pilots about Bin Laden’s death or Crews doing the same for NYC police officers, they feel it because of the fact that it’s all stemmed from the very real and tragic events of 9/11, not the show’s writing or story arc.
It is interesting to think of things that way, because although I enjoyed watching the episode, it didn’t really stem from anything in the episode. As I really think about why I felt the way I did after finished “5/1,” it was because of the true events that took place on 9/11 and 5/1, when Bin Laden was announced as an EKIA. The episode was a platform to convey those emotions, and for that reason along, I give Sorkin and the show credit.
The Hollywood Reporter stated that many real-world reporters didn’t like this episode for a lot of the technicalities that should’ve have been minor plot points, but were milked for cheap laughs and emotional moments (i.e., Will getting high and being allowed to go on air). “[The death of Bin Laden is] an incredibly charged subject for most Americans. And yet somehow the show’s final minutes are resoundingly flat.” This is very true in that the show got less and less creative as the episode neared its conclusion. Maybe Aaron Sorkin would argue that a story didn’t need to be created–it was supposed to be about the real events and paying tribute to the way people felt and acted on that night. However I do feel that there could have been more creative ways to go about telling the story than getting McAvoy high and having another relationship/love-quadway sub-plot, and for this main reason of lack of creativity during a potentially ultra-serious and emotionally deep episode, I’m giving it a 3/5. I kind of love it and kind of hate it at the same time.
References:
Getting High, Reaching a Low, Matt Richenthal
Hollywood Reporter Bin Laden Episode Review, THR Staff