I agree. (I’m a journalist, too.) So far, the newspaper characters don’t have anywhere near the depth of any of the others. They’re less nuanced and more black and white. Gus is a great guy, competent with few flaws, and Whiting, the editor in chief, is a pretentious ass who knows nothing about journalism but thinks he knows the common people because his wife volunteers in the public schools. He and the managing editor are corporate robots with no redeeming characteristics, and Gus, Twigg, Alma, and a few others are great journalists with no blemishes. And Scott Templeton is The Wire’s Jayson Blair, a symbol of all that’s wrong with 21st century journalism.
The thing is, I’m sure all the characters in the newsroom are based on people Simon knew, and I’ll just bet that he knew an editor whose wife volunteered in the schools. But he’s so pissed off about the way he was treated by the Sun and by what’s happened to newspapers (positions I completely agree with, BTW), that he can’t see any other side of that character. He’s made murderers more sympathetic.
Also, ISTM that the problems of newspapers in the modern world are being presented in a more preachy fashion than those of the docks and the schools in previous seasons.
That said, from what I can gather (I never worked at a newspaper, but my father was an editor at the Baltimore Sun for 34 years), the technical aspects of the inner workings of the news room are spot on.
BTW, a technical explanation for non-journalists: my father explained to me that when they refer to “the dot” and “the double dot,” they’re talking about different editions of that day’s paper. The earliest edition every day is the “bulldog” (although I don’t remember them using that term in the show), followed by the dot, the double dot, and the final. They can make changes between the editions if they get updated information or discover errors.
If anyone has any other questions about the practice of putting out a daily paper, Charlie or I might be able to answer them.