Salon.com > newsroom

Newsrooming it: How Aaron Sorkin reframed bad media behavior

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:06:00 +0000

Last July, the most widely ridiculed episode of Aaron Sorkin’s “The Newsroom” aired. Titled “I’ll Try to Fix You,” it climaxed with the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords. The staff of “News Night,” assembled at the office on a Saturday, quickly went into action, as the sound of Coldplay’s “Fix You” began to play on the soundtrack. Other news agencies— NPR, and then Fox, MSNBC and CNN— began to report that Giffords was dead. The crass head of ratings stormed into the newsroom and demanded that the “News Night” team “call” Giffords’ death: “Every second you’re not current a thousand people are changing the channel! That’s the business you’re in,” he shouted, looking to his typical ally, the cynical producer Don, for support. Don didn’t provide any: “She’s a person. A doctor pronounces her dead, not the news,” he said. Jeff Daniels’ Will McAvoy then made the righteous choice, deciding not to announce Giffords’ death on air, but to stick to the facts. Seconds later, word came that Giffords was alive and headed for surgery. The “News Night” team, virtuous resistor of peer-pressure, had made the right call. The Coldplay swelled.

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

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 23:40:00 +0000

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.”

Hate-watching “Smash” is one of life’s great pleasures

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 17:56:00 +0000

“Hate-watching” is a not a properly descriptive term: “Hate-watching,” when truly practiced, is a joyful experience. If one truly dislikes a show — finds it boring or offensive — one does not watch at all. Watching, one does not feel a rush of bitchy glee at the ridiculous heights the show scales, the incidental lunacy it achieves. Hate-watching is what happens when you turn into your most judgmental self and start pointing and laughing, but without feeling a twinge of guilt or shame that your time could be better spent. The object of your derision is not unworthy, it's not just some god-awful TV show — it is a god-awful TV show with pretensions and the ability to surprise you, even if it is only with new lows. Hate-watching a show is not the same as loving it, but, as ever, hate and love bear a passing resemblance: They are the feelings reserved for that which you are most passionate about.

Aaron Sorkin, notorious Internet-hater, joins Twitter!

Wed, 31 Oct 2012 18:14:00 +0000

Aaron Sorkin joined Twitter five days ago, but because joining Twitter does not seem like a thing the real Aaron Sorkin, notorious hater of the Internet, would do, no one paid much attention. Sorkin tweeted twice — once, tweeting a picture of himself, another time, tweeting to “The West Wing’s” Richard Schiff — and then he went silent. But today, prolific tweeter Joshua Malina, who played Will Bailey on later seasons of ‘The West Wing” and is currently on ABC’s “Scandal,” testified that @aaronsorkin was the real Aaron Sorkin. (Even more convincingly, Malina’s next tweet was all about how Aaron Sorkin doesn't know how to use Twitter: “Josh: Follow me, for fuck's sake. Aaron: As soon as someone teaches me how to do that I will. Josh: Consult an underling. Aaron: I'm on it.") Sorkin’s publicist followed up with a confirmation. That twice-tweeting guy using @aaronsorkin's handle is really Aaron Sorkin. Amazing.