Diksha Sundriyal
Focusing on the coverage of the presidential campaign, HBO Max’s ‘The Girls on the Bus’ follows the story of four journalists who find themselves at odds with their own beliefs that are challenged over the course of the months they spend in each other’s vicinity. The four main characters— Sadie, Lola, Grace, and Kimberlyn, belong to different news outlets, with one of them using TikTok as her form of media. For Kimberlyn, the campaign story is a chance to get the promotion that will get her to the White House. She works for a channel called Liberty Direct News. How close does it come to the real news channels in America?
Liberty Direct News Represents Conservative News Outlets
For the character of Kimberlyn in ‘The Girls on the Bus,’ the creators of the show intended to present the point of view of a Republican in a group of Democrat-biased journalists. She not only brings balance to the dynamics in the group but also presents a different view of someone conservative while also finding common ground with her fellow journalists who have political views that are different from hers.
Kimberlyn works for Liberty Direct News, which is a fictional news outlet. However, it is structured on real news outlets, particularly conservative ones. For Kimberlyn’s character, one of the people that the writers looked towards was Candace Owens, who works for The Daily Wire, hosting a show of her own. While Kimberlyn may share some similarities with Owens, she is a unique person in her own right. However, when it came to creating her workspace, the writers wanted to highlight the challenges faced by a woman, particularly a woman of color, whose ambition is hindered by people constantly underestimating her abilities.
Despite being a diligent professional who does her best to bring out the stories that no one else is looking at, Kimberlyn often finds herself being pushed aside by the ones who are not as deserving as her. This inequality in her workplace infuriates her, especially as she struggles to be taken seriously because no matter what she does, it is never enough; it doesn’t stop her from aiming high and changing her goals when it looks impossible for her to grow at her workplace.
Liberty Direct News, in that sense, becomes a hovel for a journalist with wit and integrity. Even if it has good reporters like Kimberlyn, it is reduced to being a mockery of itself and, hence, loses its credibility to the public, who see it as an organization that is completely opposed to liberal ideas, which also reflects on its employees and tends to land them in trouble. Eventually, Kimberlyn has to move past this and work on her own goals, while Liberty Direct News remains a caricature of what a news agency should look like.
Read More: Cyrus Nowrasteh’s ‘Sarah’s Oil’ Plot Details Revealed
