Aaron Sorkin hopes to address Sandy Hook shooting in next season of “The Newsroom”

The show will handle a series of sensitive subjects in season two, but the massacre is one of the most traumatic

Topics: newsroom, Sandy Hook Elementary Shooting, Newtown shooting, Television, Aaron Sorkin,

Aaron Sorkin hopes to address Sandy Hook shooting in next season of Actor Jeff Daniels, left, and "The Newsroom" creator and executive producer Aaron Sorkin(Credit: John Shearer/invision/ap)

At a Q&A session at Sunday night’s PaleyFest in Los Angeles, Aaron Sorkin announced the charged subjects that his most recent drama, “The Newsroom,” will cover in its upcoming coming season: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Trayvon Martin, the Affordable Care Act and drones, to name a few. But Sorkin also wants to address the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting that left 26 dead in 2012. He’s just not sure how to do it, yet. “Obviously Newtown is something that was an important moment to all of us and the last thing you want to do is handle it poorly,” he said.

“That’s a tough thing to write about without minimizing it or exploiting it or just spreading cheese wiz all over it,” he told the audience. “You could stop before Sandy Hook. That is the only way you could do it. On the other hand, there are so many land mines to step on. You want to make sure you don’t do a disservice to the story that is very important to all of us.”

“So at the moment, I am sort of looking down the calendar at Sandy Hook and that is my fear there.” Although “I am not a hundred percent sure,” he added, “(But) I bet we do.”

 

Prachi Gupta is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on pop culture. Follow her on Twitter at @prachigu or email her at pgupta@salon.com.

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