“ What do you do when they say they're going with an unidentified source who's telling them something untrue and damaging with no one on the record refuting it? You're in a tough spot. ”
Since there is little else of interest in the September 2001 issue of Talk magazine, let me confine my comments to Michael Cieply's article. Tastefully titled "The Crack-Up," it features a large, brooding photo of writer Aaron Sorkin who "reluctantly" submitted to an interview as a result of pressure from his agent and press representative. I suppose they felt he should try to clear the air and try to buff up his tarnished reputation. Or perhaps, as Sorkin pointed out on Mighty Big TV's discussion forums (where he has been posting comments since late January of this year, using the handle "Benjamin"), it was a matter of feeling more or less blackmailed:
I don't think I need to tell you the last thing I want is to keep a story like this going. But what do you do when they call you and tell you they're running the story whether you participate or not "and it'll be worse for you if you don't participate?" What do you do when they say they're going with an unidentified source who's telling them something untrue and damaging with no one on the record refuting it? You're in a tough spot. [August 3, 2001]
A tough spot, indeed. While it may be utterly commonplace, it's still a lousy way to be a journalist. Let's hope that that is not how Mr. Cieply got this particular interview.
I imagine that when Sorkin looks back on the 2000-2001 season, he will remember it as a "wonderful, terrible year" for many reasons. The season started off with The West Wing collecting a truckload of hardware at the Emmys: nine awards. The show's ratings continued to climb, exacting a pretty good chunk of change for NBC. The season roared along toward a compelling, widely discussed finale. All should have been well for Sorkin, frequently described as "television's golden boy." But about a month before the season finale aired, Sorkin was busted at Burbank Airport on his way to Las Vegas.
The trip was a gift from his wife, Julia, as a reward for finishing the season, and he was supposed to spend one night at the Bellagio to enjoy a rare opportunity to relax. Sorkin says in this article that he and Julia had already made the decision to separate before the drug bust, and indicates that they continue to have a very amicable relationship, with Sorkin visiting constantly to see his baby daughter Roxanne. He never got out of California, though: security staff at the airport spotted a pot pipe in his luggage as it was being scanned by the x-ray machine. Upon further inspection, they found marijuana, mushrooms, and rock cocaine. Cieply writes, "Sorkin says he grew lightheaded, as if his body knew before his mind that he was in serious trouble." Apparently his subsequently fainting did little to detract from the suspicion that he was high at the time. That was the beginning of a nightmare that will probably dog him for some time.
Talk: "The Crack-Up"
On top of the ensuing bad publicity for Sorkin and the series, writers on the show were involved in contract negotiations that were getting ugly; Cieply summarizes that "contractually promised third-year raises and promotions for staff were not delivered because, Sorkin says, the show's production costs were too high and its unconventional structure, in which he writes all the scripts himself, didn't justify such high salaries for the other writers." There seem to be plenty of opinions on this whole writers' brouhaha, no shortage of which were expressed in MBTV's forums throughout the summer. Sorkin himself posted about the matter here, as did at least one writer for The West Wing, Rick Cleveland.
Cieply manages to misapprehend this aspect of the matter thoroughly, writing, "Sorkin was put in the unseemly position of adopting a pseudonym to defend himself in an online chat room frequented by fans of the show." Huh? Number one: nobody put Sorkin in any position whatsoever. As previously stated, he had already been posting for six months or so when this thing erupted. He certainly is free to post or not post remarks as he wishes. Number two: I'm not sure exactly what's so "unseemly" about the fact that about fifty million people probably use "pseudonyms" online (or as we hipster young'uns call them, "user IDs" or "handles"). Sorkin probably would have registered as "Aaron" if that name hadn't already been taken by one of our esteemed recappers, and it's only a minority of people who use their real full names in posting on bulletin boards and Usenet anyway. Using a "pseudonym" does not in any way single him out as doing something "unseemly." ["PSA: for a whole raft of reasons, everyone should use pseudonyms online. Kids, play safe!" -- Wing Chun] Number three: there's a big difference between an "online chat room" and a "discussion forum," which is what MBTV offers. Five minutes of research online would have provided Cieply with much of this information. What Sorkin was doing was making use of a public forum he was already completely accustomed to using.
Anyway, this very public conversation caught the eyes of various writers for print and the web, generating more bad publicity. The contractual fighting was widely discussed, as was Sorkin's failure to thank certain people when various awards were bestowed upon him. Sorkin and Cleveland more or less publicly kissed and made up, but not before a lot of negative press was created. Sorkin takes the lion's share of the blame: "It's been a summer of bad publicity for the show, and it's almost entirely my fault." While a lot of this controversy was swirling around, four of The West Wing's lead actors (Allison Janney, Richard Schiff, John Spencer, and Bradley Whitford) were involved in their own salary negotiations, which were going poorly enough that the four did not attend the table reading of the Season Three premiere script. It was sorted out in relatively short order with pay increases for all four, but not before yet more bad press attended the show. In addition to all of this, this is the year Sorkin marked his fortieth birthday, as well as undergoing back surgery in June. Having gone through quite a lot myself since last summer, I feel most of the time that I have had a hell of year, but my God, it's really nothing compared to what Sorkin's gone through.