They speak at a speed that will never happen in real life for real peopl

This is an Aaron Sorkin thing.

It's part of the reason many of us really love pretty much everything he touches as well. Marketing research and the realities of our world say that audiences will only sit still for so long to absorb a story.

Since Sorkin came up writing primarily for the stage where the suspension of reality is far more acceptable so that you can cram a BIG story into a 2-3 hour stage performance, this has translated into his TV and Film writing/producing.

Actors talk fast and the story moves on briskly. They can get more story in the allotted time, so why should the audience sit and wait while the character talks slower when instead the characters can simply react and the story can continue to flow.

The opposite of Sorkin (and a handful of others like him) are the heavy-handed shows that are also popular where a person is handed a one-sentence note in slow-motion to sappy music and we see the actor's reaction to being handed the note, them actually look down at the note, their reaction to the note, and finally they zoom way in on the actual note so the audience can know what they've been watching in slow-mo for the last 30 seconds. There's nothing explicitly WRONG with television this way ... but the only things right with it are financially beneficial and emotionally exploitive.

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Matthew 5:5 - Blessed are the geeks, for they shall inherit Middlearth.

It reminded me both of the Gilmore Girls, and of the fast-talking newsman cliche from the forties and fifties.

Something that did bother me was the way each character was written - if you were to take most of their lines, write them down, shuffle them up and then read them back, you'd have a hard time discerning the quick-talking irreverent wit of one character apart from the rapid-fire acerbic wit of another character.

I love their dialogue... and I loved that Maggie was called out on the train for monologueing

That's what I love about some of his projects (American President, Sports Night, Newsroom etc). It's not so much feeling as if the writing is cramped into set amount of minutes as much as how places such as these are often that busy. I like that energy onscreen

That said, Never could get into WW.

(I thought it was just me thinking they spoke so fast!!)
Yes, they spoke so fast.

You've obviously never hung around broadcast types.

I too had problems with this issue the first time I tried to watch this series... I actually stopped watching the series within the first season, since I seemed to have difficulty THINKING that fast, and often, comprehending the words spoken, then the implied meaning, subtleties, and humor within... all with dialog spoken at 90 mph...

THEN... two years later... I watched "The Martian", and once again seeing actor Jeff Daniels performing (as the head of NASA) I found myself longing for the pleasure of watching him perform again... He's SUCH a powerful actor!

So I had a thought (WHY NOT USE SUBTITLES???) and I went back to Season 1, FIRST episode, and started to watch them ALL again, and continuing from where I'd dropped out the first time... THIS time with subtitles!!!

As an American, and a native English speaker, I'm sure it sounds strange to hear I needed subtitles, (but hey, I'm 66 years old now, lol) and NOW I can JUST keep up with the witty dialog... if I read along, at the same time, hehehe.

Anyone know why the second season was just 9 episodes... and season three wrapped with just six???

RIP, The Newsroom, gonna miss you so much...
Gerald

It's a veil of intellectualism they want to create by making the characters talk really fast when, what they're saying are actually pretty mundane and boring. They do it all the time in comedies that try to look smart, like "Mad About You", "Gilmore Girls" and like.