Sony hacks: Sorkin says media are 'morally treasonous'
A Daily Beast article reveals Jennifer Lawrence wasn't paid as much as her male co-stars in a recent film
The messages read like something from a bad Hollywood film about Hollywood. The misbehaviour of egotistical studio executives, petulant stars and dictatorial directors seem almost too cliched to be true.
But, apparently, they are.
Major media outlets have been sifting through the voluminous trove of Sony Pictures emails made public by an anonymous group of hackers known as the Guardians of Peace for more than a week, picking out the particularly salacious details.
The resulting stories have provided a candid look at the sometimes ugly, sometimes acrimonious and often darkly amusing interactions that take place between many of the major players in the motion picture industry.
But do these articles constitute legitimate journalism or a gross invasion of privacy?
Oscar-winning screenwriter and producer Aaron Sorkin thinks it's the latter, accusing the media of "giving material aid to criminals".
Mr Sorkin, writing in the New York Times, notes that some of the emails that generated the most attention involved one of his writing projects, a planned biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs.
He says the "minor insults" revealed don't anger him as much as the fact that the rest of the film industry is standing silently by as sensitive information about Sony employees is exposed.
"Wouldn't it be a movie moment if the other studios invoked the NATO rule and denounced the attack on Sony as an attack on all of us, and our bedrock belief in free expression?" he asks.
He reserves the bulk of his scorn for the media, however. What they are writing about isn't newsworthy, he says, they're motivated purely by greed. Their actions, he says, make any future arguments against privacy invasions - by, for instance, the National Security Agency - empty.
"Let's just say that every news outlet that did the bidding of the Guardians of Peace is morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonourable," he says.
Aaron Sorkin says Hollywood shouldn't stand by as Sony's privacy is violated
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http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-30488236
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