Aaron Sorkin, The Writer Crazy Enough To Hit Himself While Writing, Fires Almost The Entire Staff For 'The Newsroom'

Speaking last month in an interview with New York, screenwriter and playwright Aaron Sorkin admitted, I write about people who are smarter than I am and know more than I do. He claimed he does so simply by using his phonetic ability to imitate the sound of intelligence.

Apparently, that's good enough to carry Sorkin's new show into its second season, even as Sorkin recently fired almost the entire writing staff for the new HBO series, according to a report from The Daily.

A source close to the show told the reporter that all that remains of the original staff is Sorkin himself and his ex-girlfriend, Corinne Kinsbury. This news comes shortly after The Newsroom was renewed for a second season, despite a weak critical response. (Writing in Salon, Alex Pareene argued that Sorkin is why people hate liberals.)

This is not the first time the aggressive and polarizing writer has been, well, aggressive and polarizing about his work. In response to the middling reactions to his new show, he simply responded that viewers weren't smart enough to appreciate his work. Revising scenes for The Newsroom, he apparently smashed his own face into a mirror when reading through some particularly truculent scenes.

According to the Washington Post, The Newsroom boasted the third highest ratings of any HBO debut since 2008. Dan Rather even liked it. So maybe one more bout of craziness will do Sorkin some good.

Watch the first episode of The Newsroom here.