‘Murphy Brown’ Revival Tackles War on Press

Hours after President Donald Trump once again called the media the “enemy of the people,” Murphy Brown creator Diane English and star Candice Bergen made it clear that the show will not shy away from today’s war on the press.

During Sunday’s Television Critics Association press tour panel, English said the new Murphy Brown episodes will be relevant to today’s media landscape.

The First Amendment is “under attack like I’ve never seen before,” English explained, reports Deadline. “The press is not the enemy of the people and these characters are the press, so we deal with that a lot.”

English’s remarks appeared to be a direct rebuttal to a tweet Trump sent early Sunday morning.

“The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick,” the president wrote.

“Our show has always lived in the real world,” English explained. “It has always been a political show with something to say.

English said there is an early episode where Murphy and her colleagues debate interviewing a character similar to Steve Bannon or Alex Jones, notes The Hollywood Reporter. Another episode features the characters expressing frustration with the White House press briefing room, because they “can’t get the truth” there.

In addition, Jake McDorman has joined the show to play Murphy’s son Avery as an adult, who now works as the only liberal voice at Wolf News, a fictional version of Fox News.

“We have always tried to blur the lines between fiction and reality. We were so successful that the vice president thought Murphy was a real person,” English said, referring to Vice President Dan Quayle’s infamous criticisms of Murphy raising Avery as a single mom.

English said the writers want the show to be so topical that they stopped developing episodes after episode nine to not “get too far ahead” of current events.

“Some things are going to drop in September, I think, and as we get into our production schedule, it becomes more and more compressed. We air three weeks from the time we shoot the show and we’re shooting digitally so we have the ability to pop in something extremely topical,” English explained.

In the revival, Murphy is inspired to come out of retirement after Trump’s election in 2016 and hosts a cable news morning show called Murphy In The Morning with her old FYI colleagues, played by Faith Ford, Joe Regalbuto and Grant Shaud. Charlies Kimbrough, who lives in Los Angeles, will appear in three episodes of the revival.

Murphy Brown returns after 20 years off the air on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 9:30 p.m. ET.

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