‘The Newsroom’ season 2 spoilers: Marcia Gay Harden in, Rosemarie DeWitt out

Just like in a real-life newsroom, HBO’s “The Newsroom” has been forced to think on its feet over the past several weeks. After originally casting Rosemarie DeWitt to play the role of litigator Rebecca Halliday, who was representing Atlantis Cable News in a wrongful termination lawsuit, the actress has backed out of the part due to what are reportedly scheduling issues. So with that in mind, Aaron Sorkin and company has been forced to scramble in order to come up with a replacement.

According to new reports, Marcia Gay Harden (whose recent roles include spots on “Royal Pains,” “Law & Order: SVU,” and “Damages”) has jumped in order to play the recurring role for season 2 of the show. In addition to that, the scenes that were originally filmed with DeWitt are being re-shot with Harden in the role.

As much as we enjoyed the first season of the show, there is little question about just how complicated production on “The Newsroom” has been since it was originally hit with mixed reviews. There was a large turnover of the show’s writing staff before the start of season 2 production, and the stories have been focused in a little bit more thanks to the subject matter of the 2012 Presidential election. While it does not appear likely that the show is going to be interviewing versions of either President Barack Obama or Mitt Romney, they have already cast at least one reporter to travel with the Romney campaign, along with an aide to the former Governor of Massachusetts.

There is no announced premiere date yet for “The Newsroom” season 2, but if the pattern holds we should probably expect it to launch in June alongside another ten-episode series in “True Blood” season 6 (which was shortened to accommodate Anna Paquin’s pregnancy).

Photo: HBO