The Newsroom
HBO | Release Date: June 24, 2012
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 67 Critic Reviews
Positive:
35
Mixed:
25
Negative:
7
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
60
Denver PostJoanne OstrowJun 15, 2012
Season 1 Review: The extremes of smart and wacky writing styles have never been so much at odds. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyJeff JensenJul 10, 2013
Season 2 Review: Alas, the show's sophomore season--which tracks the consequences of McAvoy's and his team's interconnected, uncorrected blunders--hits the ground slumping in its first four episodes. Read full review
58
HitfixAlan SepinwallJul 11, 2013
Season 2 Review: Though The Newsroom, like "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" before it, is mostly Bad Sorkin on display, there are also those occasional flashes of Good Sorkin that make it worth sifting through the rest of the mess to find. Read full review
50
HitfixAlan SepinwallJun 20, 2012
Season 1 Review: The Newsroom is convincing as a faux newscast. It's less convincing as good television. Read full review
40
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamaraJun 21, 2012
Season 1 Review: That transcendent mixture of confidence and fear, of humility and clear-eyed self-assessment, evident in so much of Sorkin's other work, is what turns a sermon into a work of art. And that is precisely what is missing here. Read full review
60
New York Daily NewsDavid HinckleyNov 7, 2014
Season 3 Review: [The two plotlines] provides plenty of rich material for Sorkin on both fronts, and we can be sure he’s got plenty to say. The hope is that he will restrain himself enough so the rest of us can distill it into something we can digest. Read full review
50
People WeeklyTom GliattoJun 22, 2012
Season 1 Review: Daniels is great, biting clean through clotted dialogue that's twinkly yet sanctimonious. [2 Jul 2012, p.40]
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayJul 12, 2013
Season 2 Review: If you didn't like Sorkin's politics before, I doubt you'll be any happier with them this season.... Technology continues to be a bugbear for Sorkin (maybe that's why he was so prescient last season about the NSA stuff?), but stupidity in general seems more evenly distributed this season. Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen GrayJun 20, 2012
Season 1 Review: The Newsroom is both wonderful and terrible. Read full review
50
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenNov 7, 2014
Season 3 Review: The show was never entirely believable and the conceit of having episodes set during actual events--where the characters and/or viewer perceptions benefit from hindsight--felt like a cheat even though it could sometimes also be thought-provoking. The third-season premiere doesn’t shy away from this. Read full review
60
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob OwenJun 22, 2012
Season 1 Review: The Newsroom characters grow a bit over the show's first four episodes and begin to seem less like types and more like fully-defined people, but they never feel altogether real, the unintended consequence of inhabiting an idealistic fantasy land. Read full review
60
PopMattersGareth JamesJun 25, 2012
Season 1 Review: The Newsroom is timely, well acted, and big-hearted, but offers few surprises. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoNov 5, 2014
Season 3 Review: The Newsroom feels largely the same as it did last year, despite Sorkin’s claim that this season would make up for the flaws of the last two. That is to say it’s both really good and remarkably aggravating—sometimes in the same line of dialogue. Read full review
40
SalonWilla PaskinJun 20, 2012
Season 1 Review: The results are a captivating, riveting, rousing, condescending, smug, infuriating mixture, a potent potion that advertises itself as intelligence-enhancing but is actually just crazy-making. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleDavid WiegandJun 22, 2012
Season 1 Review: The series is kind of a mess, but one you can't really look away from. Read full review
60
Sioux City JournalBruce MillerJul 15, 2013
Season 2 Review: In the second season of The Newsroom, much of the posturing and preaching has given way to storytelling--a good thing. The bad? There's still way too much attention placed on the importance of the jobs being done in a cable newsroom. Read full review
40
SlateWilla PaskinJul 12, 2013
Season 2 Review: If you get your news from anywhere other than The Newsroom, to watch the show is to be harangued by opinions you have heard many, many times over, just polished with Sorkin’s trademark linguistic flourishes and passed off as shiny and new. Read full review
40
SlateTroy PattersonJun 22, 2012
Season 1 Review: The Newsroom's focus is on putting on a show, and because its weak points are howlers and it will be a hoot to laugh not with but at them. Read full review
50
The New York TimesAlessandra StanleyJun 21, 2012
Season 1 Review: At its best, and that doesn't come into full view until the third and fourth episodes, The Newsroom has a wit, sophistication and manic energy that recalls James L. Brooks's classic movie "Broadcast News." But at its worst, the show chokes on its own sanctimony. Read full review
40
The OregonianKristi TurnquistNov 7, 2014
Season 3 Review: Based on the first few episodes, Season 3 of The Newsroom has a few signs of life, notably a timely storyline about ACN getting spun off its parent company. The actors are, as always, doing their best with one-dimensional characters. Read full review
60
TimeJames PoniewozikNov 7, 2014
Season 3 Review: By the third hour, I can’t say I was in love with The Newsroom at last. But I felt like I was finally seeing the better version of itself that it could have been. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian LowryNov 5, 2014
Season 3 Review: The Newsroom continues to represent a failed experiment--a series that won’t win any converts and too often risks irritating what should ostensibly be its allies. Read full review
40
VarietyBrian LowryJul 10, 2013
Season 2 Review: Ultimately, one needn’t be a purveyor of snark to view The Newsroom as a disappointment--too smart to be dismissed, but so abrasive as to feel like Media Lectures for Dummies. Read full review
60
VarietyBrian LowryJun 18, 2012
Season 1 Review: The Newsroom essentially presents viewers with two options: Lament how the series doesn't match the lofty crests of Sorkin's finest work, or admire the show's ambitions and embrace of serious ideas, and grudgingly roll with its uneven tides. Read full review
40
Washington PostHank StueverJul 12, 2013
Season 2 Review: As revealed by the first four episodes of the second season, even a tweaked Newsroom is a still pretty much a bore. Read full review
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