I’ve never watched Network (1976) and Broadcast News (1987) back to back, but that would be an interesting experiment. James L. Brooks, writer/director of Broadcast News, has been open about his admiration of the Oscar-winning writer of Network.
“I think Paddy Chayefsky should be in the argument for the greatest American writer. Just his versatility. That he was able to do comedy and drama. That he was able to look into the future—I don’t know anybody else that wrote two widely prescient pieces of work. When Hospital was done nobody knew we had a problem with health care, it never occurred to anybody. It was still guys making house calls. And he wrote Hospital—and he was the first one to see that—and Network was beyond belief in what it predicted…This is what was great about Chayefsky, to me you still haven’t written something unless there is a monologue in there… Just the attempt of going out there and writing a long speech and having it sustained is extraordinary. I think in Network there is a woman named Beatrice Straight, an actress, and she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress, and basically her whole role was a monologue about what it was like to be married to William Holden. He was the guy.”
James L. Brooks
TV Legends interview
Screenwriting from Iowa 