Over the past few weeks, I’ve been rewatching the television series The Newsroom. There is a certain irony in me watching a show set against the backdrop of a nightly news program given how I steadfastly avoid those very broadcasts, but I wanted to watch a complete series and haven’t found any new ones that have piqued my interest recently. The show is about a fictionalized newsman and his team who take a Don Quixote like approach (if I may be permitted a reference to a work I haven’t read) and stand against the absurdities of the news cycle during the time I was in college. As many knew then and as we certainly know now, that was a losing battle. Media is in the attention business, viewers are the product, and the algorithms are improving every day.

I haven’t rewatched the show to relive the time period in which it is set or gloat over the death of old media. I’ve watched for the psychology of the characters. More than the specific events being covered and more than the interwoven romantic relationships between the protagonists, the show is about the struggles of people trying to live up to their own principles. They face public ridicule and economic consequences for trying to live out those principles. They struggle with self-loathing when they compromise on or fail to meet those principles. They are riddled with self-doubt at every step. And yet, despite all of that, they persist. Even knowing that it is all tilting at windmills, they persist. To be true to themselves, they have no other choice. In the circumstances I’m facing, I’ve found this fictionalized example edifying.