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Showing posts from November, 2007

Stop The Hollywood Writers Strike Now!

Must see not-TV

This, for my money, is the funniest video to come out of the strike so far. But, then again, I'm on strike and not earning any money.

It's the median, stupid.

Despite the fact that the public overwhelmingly supports the WGA in our strike, there's a piece of misinformation -- actually make that dis information -- that the AMPTP has successfully foisted upon a soundbite-hungry public.  If you look at their statement  you can roughly decipher that they're saying the average working writer makes over $200,000 a year.  But that "working writer" part is cleverly obscured in their phrasing, giving the impression that an average writer takes in a healthy six figures annually. And that, of course, is what's been published, repeated, and swallowed whole.  Look here  and you'll see it reported as fact by ABC:  Average. Writer. $200K. And that's why it's so important that you read this .  It's a brief but brilliant distillation of what a total snowjob this is, why even the word "average" is inaccurate.  What we need to be talking about, if we want the real picture here, is the median income because, as

Here's where I get angry.

For a first post, this probably isn't the best reflection of what this blog will eventually be. Ultimately, it's gonna be a hodgepodge of what interests me, which -- unless you're interested in exactly the same things -- may mean it seems a little unfocused. But, when I read the following, from Henry Blodget on the Huffington Post in his "why no one has sympathy..." piece: * Employed TV writers and producers already make decent money. * Those who choose to go into the writing and producing business are usually intelligent, well-educated folks who could have chosen (and still could choose) to go into a better paid business. ( i.e., this isn't a case of oppressive owners exploiting people who have no other options). Well, I kind of went apoplectic, and so now instead of a light interest piece, an angry response is my first blog entry. Why so angry? Because Blodgett fails to recognize exactly what this strike is about. With regard to the first point, that