News Organizations Can't Stop Bashing Aaron Sorkin's 'The Newsroom'

Jeff Daniels The Newsroom

The billboards are everywhere, the press tour's been intense and the money has loomed large for  HBO's new Aaron Sorkin drama, "The Newsroom."

But it looks like the blitz may not work out: Everyone hates it.

The show stars Jeff Daniels as a Keith Olbermann-esque TV presenter whose impromptu soliloquy on the state of modern America at a Northwestern University journalism conference "goes viral" and turns his nightly news program into a renegade bastion of take-no-prisoners commentary.  

Vanity Fair has speculated that the show's budget was in the neighborhood of $100 million. (HBO does not release formal production costs.)

The first and arguably most authoritative torpedo was launched by The New Yorker's Emily Nussbaum, who said the show was "stuffed with piety and syrup."

"... “The Newsroom” gets so bad so quickly that I found my jaw dropping. The third episode is lousy (and devolves into lectures that are chopped into montages). The fourth episode is the worst. There are six to go."

Next came a "TV Rant" from Gawker's epic screedster Drew Magary, who similarly called the show "trite, messagey bullshit."  

"You can smell the paternalism, the idea that Sorkin is the last pure man on the fucking Earth. A terrible Aaron Sorkin show is exactly the same as a terrible David Kelley show, only with more walking."

ABC Senior White House Correspondent even chimed in, writing in The New Republic that the show "demonstrates [Sorkin's]  confusion about what ails journalism," and that by the end he was itching to change the channel...despite watching it on DVD. 

The final nail in the coffin may have come this weekend, from the Toronto Globe and Mail's Sarah Nicole Pickett.

Pickett actually sat down for an interview with Sorkin himself, and the multi-Emmy and-freshly minted Oscar-winner comes off as worse than the show he's written.

"With one look into the steel arrogance behind Sorkin’s eyes, I am sure he considers his life’s tragedy that, in 50 years, there will be no Sorkin to write about him.

...

“Listen here, Internet girl,” [Sorkin] says, getting up. “It wouldn’t kill you to watch a film or pick up a newspaper once in a while.” I’m not sure how he’s forgotten that I am writing for a newspaper; looking over the publicist’s shoulder, I see that every reporter is from a print publication (do not see: Drew Magary). I remind him. I say also, factually, “I have a New York Times subscription and an HBO subscription. Any other advice?”

Well, can't win 'em all.

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The Eight Most Crushing Law Firm Implosions In The Nation's History

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Once-powerful law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf had a breathtaking fall last month before going bankrupt.

The problems that sank Dewey – from disloyal partners to way too much debt – have also plagued other firms that went down in spectacular fashion in recent years.

Now that Dewey is decomposing in bankruptcy court, we thought we'd reflect on some law firms that have suffered the hardest and farthest falls from greatness.

This firm's meltdown inspired a book called "Shark Tank."

Firm: Finley Kumble

Year of death: 1987

Cause of death: Finley Kumble grew from roughly 50 lawyers to 700 attorneys in less than a decade by aggressively poaching lawyers from other firms, industry experts said.

Like Dewey that came after it, Finley also promised Senators and other superstars in the legal world exorbitant salaries to come on board, The New York Times reported at the time.

"That was the first sort of modern law firm that was put together overnight through raiding other partners," Robert Hillman, an industry expert and professor at the University of California, Davis law school, told BI.

But a firm composed entirely of new lawyers without long-term ties proved disastrous.

Heavy debt and infighting ultimately killed the firm even though at the time it was the fourth-largest in the country. The downfall was so precipitous that it inspired the book "Shark Tank: Greed, Politics, and the Collapse of Finley Kumble, One of America's Largest Law Firms."

This firm's fearful leader had his head in the sand.

Firm: Brobeck, Phleger, & Harrison

Year of death: 2003

Cause of death: San Francisco law firm Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison ran into money trouble after the dot-com collapse, but its former chairman Tower Snow kept saying again and again that the firm wouldn't resort to layoffs.

"When their fortunes started to decline, the chairman announced that nobody would get laid off, which was nice of him to say," Jonathan Landers, a nationally recognized expert on bankruptcy law, told BI.

But, he added, "Most people can't support large numbers of people hanging around, waiting for work to appear."

The 77-year-old firm lost scores of lawyers anyway, The New York Times reported in 2003. It had 900 lawyers in 2000 but only 500 when it finally sputtered out three years later.

"In France, the lawyers just don't work that hard."

Firm: Coudert Brothers LLP

Year of death: 2006

Cause of death: Coudert Brothers' global ambitions likely killed the 153-year-old law firm.

Coudert was known for its huge international presence, especially in France, and foreign offices can be difficult to manage from the U.S., bankruptcy expert Landers, told BI.

"They had a lot of foreign offices; they were almost like a franchise," Landers said. "One of the problems they had was they didn't have central control over those offices and the money in those offices."

If a foreign office failed to make money, then Coudert had to go through significant red tape if it wanted to shut that office down, Landers said.

And he hinted that foreign offices might not make as much money as those stateside. "The lawyers in France don't work that hard," Landers said. "They just don't."

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/nH-_aPfMoIc/the-eight-most-spectacular-law-firm-collapses-in-history-2012-6

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The Fed Is Now So Divided, Members Can't Even Agree On The Meaning Of The Word 'Low'

vincent reinhart

Here are the facts:

  • The Fed is failing to meet both of its mandates. Unemployment is still well above where it should be (according to the Fed's own forecasts) and inflation is trending below its goal of 2%.
  • Bernanke says the Fed has more tools at its disposal that would help correct both of these shortfalls.
  • Yet at Wednesday's meeting, the Fed did the bare minimum, an extension of Operation Twist (buying long bonds and selling short bonds) that hardly anyone thinks will be a big needle-dialer. Even those at the Fed don't seem particularly convinced.

So what explains the above? Why is the Fed not doing more despite missing on both of its goals and Bernanke saying there are more tools available.

According to Morgan Stanley's Vincent Reinhart, deep rifts are being exposed.

He writes:

Despite this dual shortfall, the Fed’s response is modest and incremental.  It has extended its program to increase the average maturity of its holdings.  They will “twist” some more, like they did last autumn, but only through year-end.  Moreover, the Fed will only swim in the safest end of the fixed income waters—the Treasury market.  They will purchase and sell about $267 billion of Treasury securities through year-end, buying at longer maturities and selling at shorter ones to keep the overall size of the balance sheet constant.

Bottom line, this was the path of least resistance—acting because market participants expected something but not acting much.

This suggests that the Fed is divided, doesn’t want to draw attention to itself right now, or doesn’t think that its remaining levers are very effective.

As for evidence of problematic group divisions, consider the forecast of the appropriate policy rate for the next few years.  The range of views of policymakers as to where the funds rate will be at the end of 2014 spans from zero to 3 percent.  Line this up with the statement:  Eleven FOMC members agreed to a statement that the funds rate would still be low by late 2014, but only six forecast an unchanged funds rate by then.  That is, they do not agree on the definition of the word “low.”

A failure to agree on the definition of "low" makes it hard to imagine this Fed willingly doing a new round of aggressive easing, or really anything bold and unconventional.

And really, you don't need to be a Fed Kremlinologist like Reinhart to see the divisions. Just this week, immediately after the Fed acted, the various Fed governors came public with their skepticism. Richmond Fed chief Jeffrey Lacker came out and said more twist wouldn't work and that it risked spurring inflation (even though that would be one of its main goals).

And St. Louis Fed President Bullard actually came out and said that he thought QE3 would be "effective" but that it faced a high hurdle due to risks associated with the Fed balance sheet

So the Fed is all over the map. You have your inflation paranoids, those who think more easing would help (but still don't want to do it) and those who can't agree on the word low.

Between the splintering at the Fed (and also the ECB for that matter, although that's a different story) and the softening economic data around the world, this has the combination of a worst-case scenario for investors and markets.

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No Delay for Arena?

If history holds, it looks as if Arena Pharmaceuticals (Nasdaq: ARNA  ) is unlikely to have to wait an additional three months before the Food and Drug Administration decides the fate of its obesity drug lorcaserin. The PDUFA date, which is the FDA's goal for making a decision, is next Wednesday.

The drug went in front of an advisory panel last month, where some members suggested that the potential heart risks for the drug weren't enough to derail its approval and could be taken care of post-approval. If Arena had to turn in substantial additional documents -- proposed post-approval clinical trials or a Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy -- the FDA was within its means to delay the decision by three months to review the extra paperwork. That's what happened to VIVUS (Nasdaq: VVUS  ) , which was supposed to hear about its obesity drug in April, but will have to wait until next month for a decision.

Based on recent FDA extensions, Arena would seem to be in the clear at this point. The agency has been notifying companies well ahead of their PDUFA dates.

Source: news reports.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules. KV Pharmaceutical (NYSE: KV-A  ) announced a delay for Makena just one day before its PDUFA date. Not that the agency had a choice; KV's partner, Hologic, provided FDA-requested information within the week before the decision, so a delay couldn't have been announced sooner.

At this point, there are four scenarios I can see for lorcaserin:

  • The FDA sees no need for additional paperwork.
  • Arena turned in paperwork, but the FDA had no problem handling it and didn't require an extension.
  • History be darned, a delay is still coming.
  • The FDA wanted paperwork Arena didn't turn in, so no delay, but don't expect an approval next week.

The first two are obvious wins for Arena. The third might not be so bad; VIVUS has held up well after its delay. A delay is likely to be perceived as a sign that the FDA doesn't have any other issues with the drug. Why worry about post-approval requirements if the drug isn't going to be approved? Mind you, that isn't bulletproof logic. Alexza was still rejected after that delay, but a swift resubmission of Adasuve implies the issues raised in the CRL were easily addressable.

The biggest risk for investors at this point is that the FDA wants paperwork but Arena hasn't turned it in. How does something like that happen? I have no idea who's to blame -- an opaque FDA or an obtuse company -- but it certainly happens. The application to file Roche and ImmunoGen's (Nasdaq: IMGN  ) T-DM1, for instance, wasn't accepted by the FDA because the agency didn't think Roche tested the drug in the right patient population.

Given the volatility in Arena's shares over the past couple of days, it seems investors aren't sure what's going to happen at the binary event next Wednesday. Assuming it happens at all.

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Source: http://www.fool.com/investing/high-growth/2012/06/23/no-delay-for-arena.aspx

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Chinese Economic Data Is Looking Horrible, And The Government Is Lying About It

Vintage Old Beijing China Historical

It's long been believed that China's economic data is untrustworthy, but now that the Chinese economy is clearly cooling down, that theory is being put to the test, and it seems to be confirmed that the government isn't always forthright about the numbers.

Keith Bradsher at the New York Times has a good overview of the situation.

He notes that in addition to there being an economic slowdown, this is a year of political transition, which further creates pressure on folks at all levels of government and in state-owned-enterprises to juice up the data.

“The government officials don’t want to see the negative,” so they tell power managers to report usage declines as zero change, said a chief executive in the power sector.

Another top corporate executive in China with access to electricity grid data from two provinces in east-central China that are centers of heavy industry, Shandong and Jiangsu, said that electricity consumption in both provinces had dropped more than 10 percent in May from a year earlier. Electricity consumption has also fallen in parts of western China. Yet, the economist with ties to the statistical agency said that cities and provinces across the country had reported flat or only slightly rising electricity consumption.

Meanwhile, for some ugly numbers that are coming from official sources, check out these reports from Xinhua.

  • Chinese cement output is up just 5% this year compared to growth of 14.3% for the same period last year.
  • In May, flat glass output fell 10.2% (!) vs. growth over over 20% in the same period last year.
  • The building material sector has seen a 7% profit drop.

Combine the weak China news with the cracking of the German economic miracle, and it's clear that the big export-dependent economies are in a world of pain.

The US continues to look good by comparison.

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Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/Ll1erBpAZKE/horrible-chinese-economic-data-2012-6

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The Fed Is Now So Divided, Members Can't Even Agree On The Meaning Of The Word 'Low'

vincent reinhart

Here are the facts:

  • The Fed is failing to meet both of its mandates. Unemployment is still well above where it should be (according to the Fed's own forecasts) and inflation is trending below its goal of 2%.
  • Bernanke says the Fed has more tools at its disposal that would help correct both of these shortfalls.
  • Yet at Wednesday's meeting, the Fed did the bare minimum, an extension of Operation Twist (buying long bonds and selling short bonds) that hardly anyone thinks will be a big needle-dialer. Even those at the Fed don't seem particularly convinced.

So what explains the above? Why is the Fed not doing more despite missing on both of its goals and Bernanke saying there are more tools available.

According to Morgan Stanley's Vincent Reinhart, deep rifts are being exposed.

He writes:

Despite this dual shortfall, the Fed’s response is modest and incremental.  It has extended its program to increase the average maturity of its holdings.  They will “twist” some more, like they did last autumn, but only through year-end.  Moreover, the Fed will only swim in the safest end of the fixed income waters—the Treasury market.  They will purchase and sell about $267 billion of Treasury securities through year-end, buying at longer maturities and selling at shorter ones to keep the overall size of the balance sheet constant.

Bottom line, this was the path of least resistance—acting because market participants expected something but not acting much.

This suggests that the Fed is divided, doesn’t want to draw attention to itself right now, or doesn’t think that its remaining levers are very effective.

As for evidence of problematic group divisions, consider the forecast of the appropriate policy rate for the next few years.  The range of views of policymakers as to where the funds rate will be at the end of 2014 spans from zero to 3 percent.  Line this up with the statement:  Eleven FOMC members agreed to a statement that the funds rate would still be low by late 2014, but only six forecast an unchanged funds rate by then.  That is, they do not agree on the definition of the word “low.”

A failure to agree on the definition of "low" makes it hard to imagine this Fed willingly doing a new round of aggressive easing, or really anything bold and unconventional.

And really, you don't need to be a Fed Kremlinologist like Reinhart to see the divisions. Just this week, immediately after the Fed acted, the various Fed governors came public with their skepticism. Richmond Fed chief Jeffrey Lacker came out and said more twist wouldn't work and that it risked spurring inflation (even though that would be one of its main goals).

And St. Louis Fed President Bullard actually came out and said that he thought QE3 would be "effective" but that it faced a high hurdle due to risks associated with the Fed balance sheet

So the Fed is all over the map. You have your inflation paranoids, those who think more easing would help (but still don't want to do it) and those who can't agree on the word low.

Between the splintering at the Fed (and also the ECB for that matter, although that's a different story) and the softening economic data around the world, this has the combination of a worst-case scenario for investors and markets.

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.

Join the conversation about this story »

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/businessinsider/~3/q5ZKQQAbbCQ/deep-problematic-divisions-inside-the-federal-reserve-2012-6

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