"The Newsroom": Season One Trivia Quiz

Answer: A college student

The unfortunate student asks all panel members to respond to the question, "What makes America the greatest country in the world?" The other three panelists respond with sound bytes and Will tries to pass off the question with a flippant one-liner, but the moderator presses him to give a sincere answer. Will goes into a rant about the multitude of things that make America no longer the greatest country on earth, creating shock waves in the audience and on social media because it is so out of character for him.

He is generally one to play to what his audience wants to hear, seeking their approval and ratings.

Answer: gossip writer

Nina Howard works for a show called "TMI", which is owned by AWM, the parent company of ACN, which produces "News Night". She tosses her drink at Will when he points out, shortly after meeting her, the slimy nature of her occupation.

Answer: her infidelity when they were in a relationship

MacKenzie and Will were seriously involved several years prior to the time the show takes place. An old boyfriend came back into her life, and she cheated on Will for months before Will discovered the infidelity and ended their relationship. Will has neither forgotten nor forgiven MacKenzie's perfidy, and for much of the series it simmers just below--or at--the surface of their current working relationship.

Answer: Japanese

When the Fukushima Nuclear Plant accident happens, Sloan is enlisted to speak with a Japanese friend of hers who works at the plant. She does so by phone, at first in the company of other staffers but later alone, off the record. He tells her the threat level, officially reported to be at 4, will actually go to 7, which is catastrophic, comparable to Chernobyl. Sloan later repeats the information obtained off the record on the 10 PM news program, incurring the wrath of the News Division's Director Charlie Skinner.

Answer: Four years

Will has paid for regular therapy appointments without seeing the psychiatrist at all for four years. When he returns, seeking medication to help him sleep, he finds that his psychiatrist actually died two years ago and the practice is now in the hands of the man's 29-year-old son.

Answer: the killing of Osama Bin Laden

Will has just consumed a couple of marijuana-laced brownies at the party when the news breaks and the staff is summoned back to the newsroom, but given the enormity of the story, there is no way he will let anyone else report it. Although thoroughly stoned, Will does a masterful job on the air, but his conduct comes back to haunt him later.

Answer: A "Sex and the City" tour bus

Maggie and Jim spend much time denying their feelings for one another, because they're each involved with someone else. But one night, the stress of denial is too much for Maggie. She and Lisa (Jim's girlfriend-and Maggie's roommate) have drinks, during which Maggie points out to Lisa that Jim is actually attracted to Maggie and not Lisa. Lisa leaves the bar upset. Then Maggie leaves, also upset. On the street she sees a "Sex and the City" tour bus. The tour guide is extolling the show's portrayal of the life of a single woman in New York. Maggie becomes infuriated; she rants at the startled tourists that life for single women in New York is NOTHING like "Sex and the City", and in the midst of the rant she says that being attracted to your roommate's boyfriend is a sad situation.

In one of the more contrived plot twists of the series, it turns out that Jim is actually on the tour bus (Lisa loves "Sex and the City" and he is trying to learn more about the show for her sake) and hears Maggie's admission that she's attracted to him. Maggie flees when she catches sight of him. He jumps off the bus and literally pursues her, ultimately finding her. They share a kiss but both pull back because, yep, they're involved with other people...

Answer: The Casey Anthony child murder

Lisa went to high school with Casey Anthony, although they didn't really know one another well. Under pressure to sensationalize their newscasts, the "News Night" staff persuades a very reluctant Lisa to participate in an on-air interview about Anthony, but Maggie and Jim, with the tacit blessing of MacKenzie and Will, supply Lisa with facts about child disappearances and other child murders that didn't attract national attention, giving her the opportunity to speak to the issue with dignity.

Answer: Ordered the hacking of phones of News Night staff and others

Reese ordered the phones of ACN employees to be hacked, and obtained information damaging to Will from a message Will had left on MacKenzie's phone the night Bin Laden was killed. Without revealing how he got the information, Reese gave it to his mother Leona and to Nina Howard; the Lansings planned to use it to fire Will once it was made public.

But Reese and Leona didn't count on Solomon Hancock's alerting Charlie that Reese had ordered the hacking of staffers' phones. When Leona calls Will in to terminate him, Charlie informs her that if Will is fired, Charlie will see to it that Reese goes to prison for hacking the phones. Leona backs down and Will keeps his job.

Answer: A disenfranchised voter

Dorothy Cooper is a victim of voter identification laws passed or on the ballot in 33 states. The laws, intended to cut down on voter fraud, requires each voter to have a valid government-issued form of identification. A 96-year old Tennessean who does not own a vehicle and has no passport, Dorothy has no government-issued identification and therefore is no longer eligible to vote, a right she has exercised for 75 years.

Will learns of her plight from Dorothy's niece, a no-nonsense nurse who is assigned to him during his stay in the hospital after he vomits blood and is found unconscious in his apartment. The nurse challenges him to report the story, and upon his return to work, he leads off the first newscast with it.