The Writers' Strike - some useful links

[elgrey]

The good people on Whedonesque have been sending pizza to the striking writers and are in the process of getting a site up so that people can make contributions.

Also from Whedonesque, this site has icons available for fans (of many shows and rising) to show their support for the writers

Comments

[elgrey]

You're welcome for the links and I think you picked terrific quotes from Joss.

That's a fabulous article you wrote, Michelle. I think you laid out the issues very clearly and it was good to see that picture of Beau Bridges supporting the writers. Carl Binder is a big loss but I do feel he's doing the right thing and I am crossing my fingers and toes that the strike is resolved quickly - as long as it can be resolved without the writers having to give way on the essential issues. They seem to me to be asking for peanuts now and it's unbelievable that the AMPTP are being so greedy and arrogant as to turn them down when they're only asking for a percentage of the profits when there would be no show without them writing it. I think the AMPTP still think writers should just shut up and live in the basement and be grateful for the occasional crust. They seem personally affronted by the idea that writers might also like to be paid a fair wage for their work.

I do think things have changed a little since the last strike, in that with the advent of DVDs and the internet, show runners and writers are not just names to fans now. We've listened to audio commentaries on which they've talked about episodes. We've often seen them in behind the scenes footage, and sometimes interacted with them on online blogs. Perhaps partly as a consequence of that, online fandom, at least, seems to be overwhelmingly behind them and very aware of the real issues, even with the obfuscations of the biased reporting of so much of the print media. I hope that fan support lends a little more power to the writers' elbows when negotiating. I'm certain that actors walking the picket lines with them makes a huge difference. Reporters who wouldn't bother to write an article about writers walking the line, will get their camera out if there is a familiar face there.

Thank you so much for the YouTube link. I hadn't seen that vid of the writers of The Office. That's wonderful. As they say, lawyers that can designate full length episodes with paid advertising 'promotions' (for which only networks receive the advertising revenue and everyone else gets nothing) should really try their hand at writing comedy; they seem to have a natural gift for it.