The Newsroom was ridiculous and terrible -- that's why Aaron Sorkin should bring it back

The Outline

Sorkin is on record as saying he's not reviving his 2012-14 HBO journalism drama. But he really should bring it back, says Jeremy Gordon. "The Newsroom was a ridiculous, if not outright bad show for myriad reasons including but not limited to the pacing, the casting, the storytelling, the music cues, and the characters," says Gordon. "But there was one novelty to its existence: Journalists could not stop watching and talking about how bad it was. It was a low-stakes way of engaging with and critiquing our livelihood that required no actual risk, since it wasn’t like any of them were going to be denied a job offer at ACN for their devastating insults about Will McAvoy’s haircut. The conditions of its popularity were, at the time, unique: It was the only contemporary show exclusively focused on depicting modern journalism (or at least the most high-profile); among Hollywood screenwriters, most of whom pass through life relatively unnoticed, Sorkin is a singular lightning rod for negative criticism (and is pretty much on record as being an asshole); the modern media loves to obsess over itself. And so, for the three years it was on it seemed like the majority of journalists had a working understanding of this show they all agreed was mostly terrible...The Newsroom provided a rare opportunity for journalists to regularly criticize and reflect on their own industry without guilt — here, they were only responding to how someone else was doing it."