Aaron Sorkin on Sony Hack: U.S. Media "Aided and Abetted Terrorism"

The screenwriter says that he was "very disappointed" that other studios did not stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Sony.

Aaron Sorkin wasn’t exactly quiet about U.S. media organizations’ coverage of the Sony hacking scandal when it erupted last year, issuing a statement at the time in which he said the wishes of the cyber terrorists were "fulfilled in part by easily distracted members of the American press."

While promoting Steve Jobs in London, the screenwriter took another shot at the U.S. media for what he said was their active participation in escalating the controversy.

"The worst part was seeing the American press as a willing accomplice, an eager accomplice to terrorism," he told The Hollywood Reporter during a roundtable discussion. "I don’t know how these reporters who printed the stuff can look at themselves in the morning."

Sorkin said the press should have ignored the stolen material, adding that it was made available through document dumps on a secret website, to which eager journalists would flock "with no compunction at all," despite people's lives being threatened.

"Instead of saying: ‘Hey we’ve got the First Amendment, we’re not helping you out, this was stolen stuff,’ [they] gorged themselves on material that was not newsworthy, it was just salacious," he said.

"You cannot tell me that an argument about Angelina Jolie is newsworthy or what Cameron Crowe’s troubles are in post-production on Aloha is newsworthy or any of the Steve Jobs stuff was newsworthy," Sorkin said.

He added that the Sony hack was a “low point” for the American press, which he claimed had “absolutely aided and abetted terrorism.”

However, he also pointed a finger at other studios for not supporting Sony during the crisis, saying he was “very disappointed.” Said Sorkin: “They should have stood up, arm in arm with Sony, saying ‘We make the movies that you want, you attack one of us, you attack all of us.’ It was a sad moment for Hollywood, it really was, a terrible, terrible moment.”

Sorkin himself hit the headlines during the hack for an email in which he claimed actors had a "much higher bar to clear" to win the best actor Oscar than women had for the best actress award.