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Tuesday, December 9, 2014

Controversy Over 'Newsroom' Campus Rape Episode

You probably know much about this already so I won't belabor.  HBO's The Newsroom in its penultimate episode presciently (it was filmed months ago) tackled the subject of a he said/she said alleged campus rape, with two male aggressors, just as the current uproar over the Rolling Stone UVA story peaked.   It aroused much backlash due to how Aaron Sorkin pictured its male producer offering sympathy to the female student but standing firm on not outing perps who have not yet been arrested.   See NYT story today.

But now here's something to watch.  A female writer for the show, Alena Smith,  tweeted that she got kicked out of the writer's room for objecting too strongly to the parts of the "rape" episode.  This drew wide RTing and commenting on the Web.  However, Sorkin, in that Times story, while confirmed that she was asked to exit, also claims that when he did a few pages of re-write she greeted them with great "enthusiasm."  So now we'll see how she replies.  (Note:  Hours have passed and she has not replied on Twitter, although she has posted other things there.)

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