And the Emmy goes to...

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series

Jeff Daniels 

Will McAvoy

The Newsroom

Episode

"We Just Decided To"

HBO

"We Just Decided To" is the first episode of the first season of the American television series The Newsroom. It first aired on June 24, 2012 in the United States on HBO. "We Just Decided To" was written by creator Aaron Sorkin and directed by Greg Mottola. In the aftermath of his public tirade, acclaimed news anchor Will McAvoy (Jeff Daniels) returns to his job to find that most of his staff are leaving and his new executive producer is his ex-girlfriend, MacKenzie McHale (Emily Mortimer) and when some breaking news about a potentially disastrous oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico hits the network, the staff faces a new challenge.

Entertainment Weekly reported in April 2009 that Sorkin, while still working on the screenplay for The Social Network, was contemplating a new TV drama about the behind-the-scenes events at a cable news program. To research the cable news world, Sorkin had been an off-camera guest at MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann in 2010 to observe the show's production and quizzed Parker Spitzer's staff when he was a guest on that show. Sorkin told TV Guide that he intended to take a less cynical view of the media: "They're going to be trying to do well in a context where it's very difficult to do well when there are commercial concerns and political concerns and corporate concerns."

According to the Nielsen Media Research, the episode attained 2.14 million viewers upon initial airing. "We Just Decided To" received mixed reviews from critics.

Ep. 1: Inside the Episode