Aaron Sorkin Apologizes for The Newsroom: "You and I Got Off on the Wrong Foot"

The creator of the HBO drama publicly apologized for his series and how it was perceived at the Tribeca Film Festival

It's not every day that a TV show creator apologizes for his show, but that's exactly what Aaron Sorkin did at the Tribeca Film Festival. Sorkin apologized to the crowd for HBO's The Newsroom.

"I'm going to let you all stand in for everyone in the world, if you don't mind. I think you and I got off on the wrong foot with The Newsroom and I apologize and I'd like to start over," Sorkin said to the audience. According to BuzzFeed, Sorkin was prompted with a question about what he's learned about the media since The Newsroom, his fictionalized network news channel drama starring Jeff Daniels, started. "I think that there's been a terrible misunderstanding. I did not set the show in the recent past in order to show the pros how it should have been done. That was and remains the furthest thing from my mind."

Sorkin said he set the show in the recent past because he didn't want to make up fake news.

"It was going to be weird if the world that these people were living in did not in any way resemble the world that you were living in…Also, I wanted the option of having a terrific dynamic that you can get when the audience knows more than the characters do…So, I wasn't trying to and I'm not capable of teaching a professional journalist a lesson," he said. "That wasn't my intent and it's never my intent to teach you a lesson or try to persuade you or anything."

Sorkin's The Newsroom has tackled a variety of subjects from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi. The show also stars Emily Mortimer, Olivia Munn, Alison Pill, Sam Waterston, John Gallagher Jr., Dev Patel and Thomas Sadoski. Daniels won an Emmy for his work on The Newsroom.

HBO recently announced a third and final season for the drama. In the third season, look for the team to handle the Boston Marathon bombing from 2013.

"The Newsroom is classic Aaron Sorkin—smart, riveting and thought-provoking," Michael Lombardo, president of programming at HBO, said in a statement. "I'm sure this farewell season will be one to remember."

Look for The Newsroom to return in fall 2014.