HBO announced Monday that it would be bringing back its new Aaron Sorkin drama, “The Newsroom,” for a second season. That makes it the second-highly publicized cable drama recently to win a quick renewal order. A drama about a fictional cable news program, “The Newsroom” premiered to strong ratings but mixed reviews. It has also stirred debate on Twitter and Facebook. Aaron Sorkin’s return to TV has received a lot of criticism for its portrayal of the media and representation of women, but it seems that the audiences are still tuning in. “The Newsroom” earned decent ratings, delivering 2.1 million viewers when it premiered June 24. “The Newsroom” centers on a cable news anchor (Jeff Daniels), his new executive producer (Emily Mortimer), his newsroom staff (John Gallagher, Jr., Alison Pill, Thomas Sadoski, Dev Patel and Olivia Munn) and their boss (Sam Waterston). The team sets out to do the news well in the face of corporate and commercial obstacles and their own personal relationships. Sorkin is among the best-known writers in the entertainment business after creating “The West Wing” and writing the Oscar-winning script for “The Social Network,” and has given numerous interviews about “Newsroom” — more than any of the actors in the series. Just as “The West Wing” glamorized the American presidency, Sorkin, 51, understands that “The Newsroom” offers a deeply romanticized depiction of a world he does not inhabit. “The Newsroom,” his first new series in nearly six years, allows him once again to ply his signature style — brainy, verbose, idealistic — on a weekly, hourlong basis and to right wrongs big and small (including those perpetrated by his most recent TV show, “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”). But it also embodies all the risks inherent in his willfully highbrow approach and polarizing subject matter, and it illustrates how a brand-name writer known for his prolific output can be his own greatest obstacle. “I just thought it would be fun to write about a hyper-competent group of people,” he said. “And I think that nowadays the news is held in at least as much contempt as our leaders in government.” Sorkin also visited real-world cable news shows and was embedded at MSNBC’s incarnation of “Countdown With Keith Olbermann” during the BP oil spill in 2010 when he realized he could structure episodes around events of the recent past. (That environmental disaster plays a prominent role in the pilot.) Olbermann, a longtime friend of Sorkin’s, said there were other parallels between his MSNBC tenure and events in “The Newsroom” pilot, as when the news anchor returns from hiatus to discover that his backup host has been given his own show. The show contains plenty of the walking-and-talking scenes that fans of “Sports Night” (another Sorkin creation) and “The West Wing” have longed for, and no matter what your political makeup, it’s hard not to get caught up in Sorkin’s idealistic notions. For the actors, filming “The Newsroom” was a crash course in Sorkin-ese: dialogue delivered in pages-long bursts, at maximum speed or volume, and sometimes without the benefit of a character biography, which the author is filling in on the fly. Olbermann agreed that one requirement for good drama is “idealistic people in nonidealistic settings, and certainly television news is almost as nonidealistic as you can get these days.” Sorkin recently signed on to write a screenplay adapted from Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs. He has also optioned Andrew Young’s book “The Politician,” about the downfall of John Edwards, for a possible film and is contemplating a play about the Chicago Seven trial. (SD-Agencies)Sorkin’s main filmography A Few Good Men (1992) The American President (1995) Sports Night (1998-2000) (TV) The West Wing (1999-2006) (TV) Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (2006-2007) (TV) Charlie Wilson’s War (2007) The Social Network (2010) Moneyball (2011) The Newsroom (2012) (TV) Steve Jobs (2013) | 