Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has attacked the media for reporting on embarrassing emails stolen by hackers in the attack on Sony Pictures, suggesting the press is more morally misguided than the hackers.

Sorkin, the American screenwriter and playwright known for The West Wing, A Few Good Men, and most recently, The Newsroom, a show lamenting the current state of journalism, attacked the New York Post, the Daily Beast and the Huffington Post for reporting on the information stolen in the Sony hack, which he says is helping criminals.

“Let’s just say that every news outlet that did the bidding of the Guardians of Peace is morally treasonous and spectacularly dishonorable,” Sorkin wrote in a op-ed published in the New York Times.

“As demented and criminal as it is, at least the hackers are doing it for a cause. The press is doing it for a nickel.”

Revelations from the hack into Sony Pictures include David Fincher saying Adam Driver being cast in Star Wars was a “terrible idea”, while Oscar-winning producer Scott Rudin complained about Angelina Jolie’s “insanity and rampaging ego”.

The cyber-attack also released high-profile titles, including Fury, along with executive salaries and other confidential employee information, revealing that at least some women in Hollywood are paid less than their male counterparts.

Sorkin wrote, after weeks of reporting the gossipy, juicy details of the hacked emails, the media finally “got serious”.

“Not because no one gets more use out of the First Amendment than they do, and here was a group threatening to kill people for exercising it. Not because hackers had released Social Security numbers, home addresses, computer passwords, bank account details, performance reviews, phone numbers, the aliases used when high-profile actors check into hotels (a safety measure to keep stalkers away), and even the medical records of employees and their children. But because a stolen email revealed that Jennifer Lawrence was being undervalued.”

A hacking group calling itself Guardians of Peace claimed responsibility for the hack on 24 November. Though the hackers have yet to be identified, North Korea remains a suspect, possibly in retaliation for the Sony film The Interview, about a fictional plot to assassinate Kim Jong-un, which is due to be released on Christmas day.

Sorkin’s name appears in a few of the leaked emails. He says hackers leaked one email he sent to Pascal advocating Tom Cruise for the lead role; another between executives speculating that the screenwriter is broke, which he says he is not; and a third that suggests he’s romantically involved with a woman whose book he’s using as material for a new script; which he says is false.

On Monday, attorneys for Sony Pictures demanded news organisations stop reporting on the information stolen by the hackers and asked them to destroy the hacked files.

In a three-page letter distributed to media companies, the studio said: “Sony Pictures Entertainment does not consent to your possession, review, copying, dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use of the stolen information,” the letter read.

To companies that fail to comply, the letter read, “Sony Pictures Entertainment will have no choice but to hold you responsible for any damage or loss arising from such use or dissemination”.

The hackers have threatened to release even more compromising data, promising a “Christmas gift” that “will be larger quantities of data”, adding: “And it will be more interesting. The gift will surely give you much more pleasure and put Sony Pictures into the worst state.”