A "Newsroom" Writer Says Aaron Sorkin Kicked Her Out For Challenging The Rape Storyline

BuzzFeed - “I love Aaron … but I felt this storyline was unacceptable,” Alena Smith told BuzzFeed News. HBO HBO As it nears the end of its three-season run, The Newsroom is going out like it came in: squarely in the middle of the gender wars with a frisson of writers room intrigue thrown into the mix. The penultimate episode of Aaron Sorkin drama, titled "Oh Shenandoah," aired Sunday, Dec. 7 on HBO and featured a campus rape plot. ACN news producer Don Keefer (Thomas Sadoski) tracks down a Princeton student, Mary (Sarah Sutherland), a rape victim, who has anonymously put up a website in which women who have been sexually assaulted can tell their stories. The two characters debate throughout the course of the episode: Mary wants people to believe her and other rape survivors, while Don wants "to ensure an innocent person [i.e. man] isn't destroyed." The episode was written and filmed months ago, but it coincidentally aired the weekend after the disastrous blowup of Rollin