To famed Hollywood screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, publishing the hacked emails from Sony executives amounts to treason.
In a New York Times op-ed, Sorkin said the details revealed by the emails — many of them were insulting of big-name movie actors and one was even viewed as racially insensitive toward President Obama — are “small potatoes” compared to the actual publication of the emails.
“As a screenwriter in Hollywood who’s only two generations removed from probably being blacklisted,” Sorkin wrote, “I’m not crazy about Americans calling other Americans un-American, so let’s just say that every news outlet that did the bidding of the Guardians of Peace is morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable.”
Some journalists have questioned the role of the press in pouring over and publishing what is essentially stolen material. Most news outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington Post, however, have readily printed the contents of the emails.
It is perhaps no coincidence that Sorkin’s rant against the news media was published by the Times just before the series finale of his HBO newsroom drama “The Newsroom.”
Sorkin wrote in the op-ed, though, that he has a stake in the emails. Business details surrounding the screenplay for one of his planned films, “Steve Jobs,” were also published.
