Aaron Sorkin wants do-over for The Newsroom

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has apologised to fans of his polarising series The Newsroom, confessing he is just getting a grasp of how to write the show and would like to “start over”. The West Wing creator made his highly-anticipated return to television in 2012 with the debut of the news drama, featuring Jeff Daniels as a no-nonsense TV news anchorman, but he admits he can understand why viewers have been on opposite ends of the spectrum on what Sorkin has decided to do with the programme.
And, with the third and final season due to air in America this summer (14), Sorkin took a moment to acknowledge that the show hasn’t lived up to his high standards during an event at the Tribeca Film Festival on Monday (21Apr14).
He said, “I think you (fans) and I got off on the wrong foot with The Newsroom and I apologise and I’d like to start over… I feel like I’m just now starting to learn how to write it.
“I’ve very proud of it… but there is a learning curve and unfortunately, those lessons are learned in front of several million people… I wish I could get every scene of every episode back so that I could do it all over again.”
The Oscar winner also insisted his decision to set the series in the recent past wasn’t meant to be taken as a lesson in journalism; the show often gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the media coverage of real events, including the killing of Osama Bin Laden and the 2012 U.S. presidential election.
He explained, “I think that there’s been a terrible misunderstanding. I did not set the show in the recent past in order to show the pros how it should have been done… I set the show in the recent past because I didn’t want to make up fake news.
“I wasn’t trying to and I’m not capable of teaching a professional journalist a lesson. That wasn’t my intent and it’s never my intent to teach you a lesson or try to persuade you or anything.”