November 15, 2007

Writers' Strike, 11/15.

NYP: Scabs! "[W]e wanted to meet the scabs, the men and women waiting—with naked and immoral ambition coursing through their veins—to replace the 12,000 members of the Writers Guild of America currently on strike against the television and movie industry," writes Matt Elzweig. So the New York Press posted a job offer on Craigslist: "Network Television Comedy Writers Needed." And the responses poured in.

In Slate, Dana Stevens has an excellent piece on why browsing The Daily Show's new site serves "as a lesson in what the strike is all about and how much is at stake in the current media wars over intellectual property." Which leads, via Movie City News, to the Daily Show writers' video laying out the absurdities of positions like Viacom's.

"Why the journalistic fixation on the strike?" asks Jack Shafer at Slate. "The national impact of the strike (even a lengthy one) won't be great. But dailies such as the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times, whose bottom lines depend on movie advertising acreage, will feel the pain if Hollywood closes shop."

"One of the Writers Guild membership's most contentious issues in the strike's early going has been Strike Rule No 8, or the Script Validation Program, which compels writers to submit copies to the Writers Guild of all their works in progress for struck companies." Jay A Fernandez reports in the Los Angeles Times.

Joe O'Connell reports in the Austin Chronicle on how the strike is effecting the local scene.



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Posted by dwhudson at November 15, 2007 11:38 AM

Comments

And what exactly is the reward for non-WGA writers who don't cross the picket line?

Posted by: Richard Harland Smith at November 15, 2007 2:14 PM

Christ. "We'll find out who they are."? I find it VERY difficult to find fault with non-Union writers who don't care about internet/"new-media" residuals that just want to write. This isn't a moral issue AT ALL, and the outrage I'm seeing from the WGA members about proposed scabs is stupid. They don't agree with you and will write while you won't. Deal with it.

Posted by: zachary at November 15, 2007 6:00 PM