Succession Season 4 Finally Shows Us How ATN Actually Works
The following article contains spoilers for season 4, episode 8 of "Succession."
ATN has always been one of the jewels in the Waystar Royco crown, but we haven't spent much time getting to see how it operates on a day-to-day basis. Sure, Tom Wambsgans (Matthew Macfadyen) has been the head of ATN for quite a while, but other than potentially being a fall guy for the Roys, the role didn't seem to give Tom much to do. That all changed in "America Decides," in which the election storyline that's been building slowly over the series finally comes to its potentially disastrous conclusion. It's the night of the election and there are three candidates: Democrat and front-runner Daniel Jiménez (Elliot Villar), far-right Republican Jeryd Mencken (Justin Kirk), and Independent idiot Connor Roy (Alan Ruck).
ATN stands for American Television Network, and it's the "Succession" world's version of CNN or, more aptly, Fox News, and that means that a large portion of the country will be watching ATN for updates on the election results. "America Decides" is the first time the show has spent extended time in the newsroom of ATN, at its most intense hour. It's a perfect representation of the myriad dangers of the 24-hour news cycle and shows the power and importance of journalism. ATN is a propaganda machine for the Roys and anyone they've aligned themselves with, and since the late Logan stumped for Mencken, the network will, too. Sound familiar?
The network has already been stoking disbelief among Mencken supporters, and it's entirely possible that "Succession" is headed for its own version of the January 6th insurrection. The Roys and their cohorts may have a lot of money, but ATN is what gives them power.
Election night chaos
Everyone's rushing around the ATN offices, which we had previously only seen in brief moments, and it looks like your standard 24-hour newsroom. Instead of cubicles, there are clusters of desks, and monitors everywhere show news feeds from around the world. It's a chaotic thing to experience on a normal day, let alone election night. On the far end of the massive newsroom is the studio itself, so breaking news can be delivered directly to the on-air anchors the moment it drops.
The need for up-to-the-minute reporting began with the advent of cable news in the early 1990s, though the general public became transfixed by it for the first time during the O.J. Simpson trial beginning in 1994, as curious audiences enjoyed getting immediate information instead of having to wait for Walter Cronkite that evening. (Or, worse yet, waiting for the next day's newspaper.) Networks like CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, and others discovered what their newspaper parallels like William Randolph Hearst had learned nearly a century before — sensationalism sells.
Elections are already fraught with plenty of backhanded tactics, and they're a fertile playing ground for news networks eager to do the bidding of whichever politicians they're aligned with. That means manipulating the public by claiming election tampering, spreading rumors about the other candidates, and more. It's nothing new in politics, but this kind of propaganda has incredible reach when there's almost always a TV around and there's a screen in every pocket.
Fearmongers and king-makers
ATN, like its real-world peers, is a news channel that runs 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year. They have to do something to keep people engaged, hence the sensationalism, and they almost always have ulterior motives for their shareholders. The news is supposed to be completely free of bias, and while that's nearly impossible, many of these networks don't even seem to try. ATN definitely doesn't, although at least they aren't so corrupt (or careless) that they give any sway to poor Con-man, who is losing rather badly.
Only sister Shiv Roy wants her husband to help push things in the direction of Jiménez because she sees Mencken as a threat to democracy, but Tom calls the election for Mencken anyway. Shocked by the decision and floundering with her feelings, she tries to speak out against the power play that could potentially doom America and her brother Roman (Kieran Culkin) tells her, flippantly, that it's all okay because they made a great night of television.
While there are certainly some real journalists working at ATN, the majority seem to be yes-men who will do whatever the Roys and their appointed bosses say, even if that means calling the election before all of the votes are counted. That could give validity to some of the conspiracy theories about the election believed by Mencken's supporters, which is just the spark their potential insurrection needs.
Things may be messy with Swedish investors GoJo and the Roy siblings figuring things out in the wake of their father's death, but if Mencken does take the win, they're seated to be more powerful than ever.