Marcia Gay Harden Building "The Tower"

(CBS)  The employees in the newsroom looked nervous.

The writers, editors and other veteran journalists were gathered around a small podium at the CBSNews.com newsroom at the CBS Broadcast Center Thursday. They waited anxiously for their new boss, Zoe Cafritz, to address them.

When she got there, she read them the riot act.

Luckily for the people who actually work at CBSNews.com, Zoe Cafritz isn't actually the new boss and the "journalists" listening to her speech were extras. The meeting was a scene from the CBS Paramount Network Television pilot "The Tower."

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Photo Essay: On Set With "The Tower"

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Actress Marcia Gay Harden plays the tough-talking new boss.

"She's a billionaire media mogul tabloid owner," the Oscar-winner told The ShowBuzz after shooting wrapped for the day. "She has bought recently two newspapers and the one she's about to acquire is a prestigious one."

The show follows a group of reporters as they investigate stories and solve mysteries against the backdrop of the struggle between journalistic ideals and the pursuit of profit.

Cafritz wants to drop the "boring" articles and add some glitz and spice to her new paper. She isn't afraid to use vulgar language to get her point across to the staff.

Harden says she was drawn to the role for three reasons.

"One, I'm a CBS devotee. I've worked with CBS many times and I really love it, and two she's a strong woman and I thought it was a character you rarely get a chance to do on television," she said. "And three, I think the issues that 'The Tower' is investigating are extraordinarily important, it's never been a more hot, explosive, fantastic time for politics, for the hugest question: Can we go into the new era with some old world values?' Really old world values about things that would help us survive and move forward in a really humanistic way. I think that's one of the questions that this show is investigating."

Harden won her 2001 best supporting Oscar for "Pollack" and was nominated in 2004 for "Mystic River." Last year she was nominated for an Emmy for her role as Star Morrison, the undercover FBI agent in an arc on "Law & Order: SVU."

"The Tower" also stars Rosamund Pike ("Pride And Prejudice"), Cole Hauser ("K-Ville") and CCH Pounder ("The Shield"), Meredith Stiehm ("Cold Case"), Davis Guggenheim ("An Inconvenient Truth) and Tom Smuts ("Close To Home") serve as executive producers.

By Judy Rosen

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