HBO's The Newsroom is cleaning house for its recently announced second season.
According to HBO, the Aaron Sorkin drama set behind the scenes of a cable news network is replacing about half of its writing staff, though one source close to the show tellsThe Hollywood Reporterthat everyone on the show's writing staff except forCorinne Kinsbury has been let go.News of the shakeup was first reported by The Daily.
STORY: 'The Newsroom's' Aaron Sorkin on Idealism, Keith Olbermann and His Private Screening for the Media Elite
"Every year each show reassesses the needs of its writing staffs.This process is nothing out of the ordinary," HBO said in a statement toTHR.
Sorkin (The West Wing) has a heavy hand in every episode of the series, with three out of the first four installments credited to him alone. Episode 3 was penned by former MTV News anchor Gideon Yago, who was let go in the purge.
The heavily-hyped series starring Jeff Daniels was expected to be another critical darling from the Oscar-winning Sorkin (The Social Network). But as the reviews began to trickle in in mid-June, it became clear that the drama had fallen short of the critical community's hopes, drawing a metacritic score of 57 out of 100.
Among the more scathing reviews was one in the Wall Street Journal, which said: "It's clear that Mr. Sorkin's main interest in The Newsroom runs to concerns other than characters and storytelling." Similarly negative was a New Yorker piece, which stated that, "The Newsroom treats the audience as though we were extremely stupid."
The Hollywood Reporter's Tim Goodman was more positive, praising what the show delivers: "pure Sorkin," noting that "you can take that any which way you want, depending on your thoughts about Sorkin."
The networkrenewedNewsroomon July 2. The dramabowedJune 24 to 2.1 million viewers -- behind onlyBoardwalk EmpireandGame of Thronesamong HBO's drama launches since 2008.
The Newsroom airs Sundays at 10 p.m. on HBO.
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