Aaron Sorkin is worried Bari Weiss’ moves at CBS News are opening the door for “a second blacklist.”
In a conversation with Esquire published Wednesday, “The West Wing” and “Newsroom” creator was asked his thoughts on the multiple ousters at “60 Minutes” – including Scott Pelley’s firing after disagreements with Weiss. He said its a bad sign in general but worsened because it seems to have been done to curry favor with President Trump.
“Listen, it would be one thing if Bari Weiss came in and just fired some people who shouldn’t be fired and took ’60 Minutes’ segments off the air that should have aired,” Sorkin said. “But it is happening to curry favor with a president who is very easily bribable, and that’s terrifying. Being just a couple of generations removed from the blacklist, I’ll watch things about it and think, ‘I don’t get how these very powerful people – these studio and network heads – just fell in line and recognized a blacklist.’”
He added: “Now I see how. It happened just like this. So we have been, for a little while now, knocking on the door of a second blacklist. I just hope this time around the studio heads and the network heads won’t be so malleable, but it doesn’t look like that’s the case.
“60 Minutes” parted ways with Pelley back in June following the longtime correspondent clashing with editor-in-chief Weiss and accusing her of “murdering” the program.
“Your antipathy to the future of the show has come through loud and clear,” “60 Minutes” executive producer Nick Bilton wrote in a letter sent to Pelley at the time of his firing. “And I have heard you. I therefore write on behalf of CBS News to inform you that your employment with CBS is terminated for cause effective immediately.”
When reached for comment, a spokesperson for CBS News pointed to several statements Weiss has made in the past “that reject the claims” that Sorkin made, including Weiss’ comment in a WSJ interview saying, “What’s being called ‘editorial interference’ is in reality the job description of an editor in chief.” The spokesperson also referenced a CBS News spokesperson’s statement in response to Pelley’s June interview with the New York Times that denied claims that Weiss’ editorial actions were politically motivated.
Elsewhere in the Esquire interview, Sorkin also touched on how his work on HBO’s “The Newsroom” rankled real journalists. He explained that he wished he could approach the show in a new way and that the media was “rightly offended” by certain aspects of the series.
“I always felt like the real news media and I got off on the wrong foot with ‘The Newsroom,’” Sorkin said. “‘The West Wing’ took place in a parallel universe. ‘The Newsroom’ took place in this one. I did that so that I wouldn’t have to invent news stories. And I think that real newspeople felt like I was going to show them how it should have been done.”
He added: “They were rightly offended by that, though that wasn’t my intention. I also felt like we did the show for three seasons on HBO, and I was just never comfortable in my chair writing the show. I always felt like there was a pebble in my shoe. I just wasn’t getting it right. I could write a good scene—I could write a good couple of scenes—but I just could not put a good episode together of the show, and it was driving me nuts.”
