I like Sorkin. Well. I like his dialogue. Sometimes I like his plots. Some of his characters I enjoy. But I do love his cadence, the feel, I adore it. I am not as enamored of the man. Not by half. With his new show NEWSROOM starting tonight I wanted to get this out.

See the show is about, basically, how we have to re-elevate the news to a thing of glory. A bastion for smarts and truth and all that. And I agree. But Sorkin seems to think this can only happen on TV Network News. I disagree.

But to disagree with Sorkin, I wanted to do it on his terms. With a script.

INT. Hallway – Night.

Kevin and Lisa walk down the dimly lit hallway together, moving quickly. Kevin shuffles papers in his hands as he moves, almost as if he was searching for a cosmic order to put them in, a higher purpose in the relationship of one paper to the next. Lisa hugs a clipboard to her chest as if it were a security blanket.

KEVIN
It’s time to take back the truth.

LISA
And we’re the people to do it?

KEVIN
I know that at least I am. It’s the truth, the journalistic point. There is no compromise. There are arguments, there are sides, but there is also, there has to also be, truth. It’s the sort of thing you realize, or at least the sort of thing we used to realize, when we admitted how much it mattered.

LISA
Admitted how much it mattered? We stopped thinking it mattered? Who did we admit this to, back when we admitted this sort of thing?

KEVIN
To ourselves. It isn’t like – I’m not saying we went out and proclaimed how much it mattered to random strangers. We wouldn’t have to. We didn’t have to. It mattered, we knew it, they knew it. They, you understand, are the random people. Not some mystical other, here. I’m not saying culturally there’s a group of people we would go and admit things to. And admission group, I suppose they would be, but no, not them, because they don’t exist.. I’m talking about your own argument.

LISA
It wasn’t an argument. But fine. The thing is, this is what I’m wondering, this is my point.

KEVIN
Your point?

LISA
I’m getting to it, if you’d let me, I’ll get to my point.

KEVIN
Ahh, I thought you were saying you had gotten to your point. I wondered because you hadn’t said anything yet, not anything of substance, this thing about thinking that maybe we accosted strangers in the street or something but…

LISA
That wasn’t even a thing I said, it was a thing you said, to be sure, but I never said it. So no, that wasn’t my point. It couldn’t have been my point. I never said it. But my point is – this thing I am trying to say, my point… my point is simple.

KEVIN
Enlighten me.

LISA
If only I thought I could. No, I fear that we’ve passed that juncture in this discussion. You want the truth. You want journalism. You want the old ways back to feel as if the lay of the land makes sense again.

KEVIN
It has to make sense again, without sense it’s simply madness out there and we shouldn’t stand for that anymore.

Lisa opens a glass door as they approach it, shifting the clipboard to only one hand before clutching it again to her chest with both hands, holding the door open for Kevin to pass through with her own body, the door swinging against her back and jostling her slightly.

LISA
Except there is sense out there. Just not sense that you see. Because you – and I say this honestly and full of truth. That thing you hold so dear, you need to understand that it lives here. The truth is, the horrible, brutal, real breathing truth is, we’ve moved on.

KEVIN
We have to move back. Don’t you see, without moving back we can’t reclaim intelligence over stupidity, truth above ratings…

They resume walking.

LISA
Yes, we can. We are, we’re trying and we’re working and the last thing we need is to be told that not only is our fight perfectly wrong but also useless and pointless. Don’t you see that you do more harm than good? You want the truth but only on your terms of what the truth is. That isn’t reality. It’s a lie by a different name, dressed up to walk along the road on it’s hind legs and not something to ever hold dear. It’s something to, something to, I don’t know, but it’s something to do something else to, if you see what I’m saying. You don’t want the truth, you want the past. You’re ignoring the future, for a truth that doesn’t exist the same way.

Kevin and Lisa turn a corner. Kevin is shuffling his papers slower now, and Lisa has started to turn and twist the clipboard in her hands, as if noticing she was carrying it for the first time.

KEVIN
But we need to remake the truth into the truth that it was, otherwise it isn’t the truth, is it? It’s some other thing.

LISA
Remaking the truth makes it a lie. No. We need to embrace brilliance, you’re right. We need to really take stock and push harder and further. I’m with you there. But we need to do it by owning the new ways, not retreating to the old ways that, let’s be honest here again since we both love truth so much, the old ways that lead to this state of affairs to begin with.

KEVIN
That’s not true! This was caused by…

LISA
People like you chasing the future blindly in panic and, in your fear, selling yourselves to collect as much as you could despite giving up the very thing you tried to sell in the first place. It’s all right. We’ve seen it before. And thank you, really. We’ve seen it enough to start being able to gather data and possibly avoid the same mistakes this time. A thing you are not doing, yourself. Strident belief is not avoiding mistake. It is opening the door for it.

Kevin and Lisa turn another corner and come to a dead end. At the end of the hall there is a large box. It is unmarked and has only a simple door with a latch on the outside.

KEVIN
We can’t allow the same sort of pandering to…

LISA
Pandering? Like you’re doing by demanding the only way through is backwards? As if progress should be shunned instead of corrected and the truth is a thing that was written in stone once and never changes to fit reality and factual evidence? Are you possibly, at all, serious?

KEVIN
Of course I am.

They come to the box and stop. Lisa sets her clipboard on top of it and unlatches the door.

LISA
Then you’re more of a problem than I thought. I tell you what. You sit in this box here and explain everything to this wall. I’ll be outside, building a future.

KEVIN
But this box is…

Kevin starts to stoop, to enter the box, craning his neck to maintain eye contact with Lisa.

LISA
Safer for you.

KEVIN
I’m not sure I…

LISA
It’s comfy.

KEVIN
No, but you see, if you would only…

LISA
Enjoy. It’s the past you hold so dear. We ship it in boxes now. Saves us the trouble. Stackable, really.

KEVIN
I..

LISA
Indeed.

Lisa shuts the door, latches it shut and picks up her clipboard. She looks at it and frowns. Something’s wrong. She flips through the papers attached and sighs.

Look back the way she came, Lisa shakes her head.

LISA
Gerald! Gerald! Has anyone seen Gerald? This call sheet is all wrong! Come on people, we work to do, let’s do it right!

Lisa leaves, walking quickly down the hallway.