The Sony Hack and the Yellow Press

A New York Times op-ed calls out the media in helping the Sony hackers gain glory for their thievery.

Contributor Aaron Sorkin has an inside track on the Sony Pictures Entertainment debacle – he’s written a screenplay for Sony and his correspondence was part of the hacked, and published, emails. Sorkin says he cares less about the content of the private emails and he cares more about the lack of response protecting the Hollywood movie industry from illegal acts.

“We create movie moments,” he writes. “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? If the Writers Guild and Directors Guild stood by their members? If the Motion Picture Association of America, which represents the movie industry in Washington, knocked on the door of Congress and said we’re in the middle of an ongoing attack on one of America’s largest exports?

“We’re coming to the end of the first reel; it’s time to introduce our heroes.”

Sorkin builds his case on the fact the hackers used the media as a leveraging tool connected to violent threats and the lack of newsworthiness in the publicly released information. If the data revealed law-breaking activity, Sorkin says he’d change his tune.

“What part of the studio’s post-production notes on Cameron Crowe’s new project is newsworthy?” Sorkin writes. “As the character Inigo Montoya said in “The Princess Bride,” I do not think it means what you think it means.”

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