The Writers Guild Wants Writers Compensated for Digitally Distributed Content
Much as it has complicated book publishing and distribution, the concept of "Digitally Distributed Content" has become a huge issue for TV writers and the way they are compensated. Sale of television episodes via iTunes, delivery of short-form content on cell phones, and use of material on blogs and social networking websites is happening with little or no additional compensation for the writers. That has been justified as "promotion," but the Writers Guild feels that since these new forms are being sold and distributed as content, they certainly should be considered as entertainment, and the writers should be properly compensated. The Writers Guild of America asks you to "Support the people who make you laugh, make you think, and entertain you on a nightly basis."
Visit the Writers Guild of America webpage for the latest on the strike.
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Much Ado About Publishing
What if Authors Went on Strike?
Since time began, the people who create stuff have always had to fight for fair treatment and their fair share of the profits with the people who market said stuff.The latest round in this never-ending battle took a turn at the stroke of midnight on November 5, 2007 when members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA), the folks who write for TV and film, went on strike.
The last time this happened was in 1988, and I covered the strike by spending a day on the set of the CBS daytime soap, The Guiding Light, not only TV’s longest running soap, but, given its birth on radio, the longest running program in broadcasting history.
As one of the many American writers who contributed to Starweek, the weekly TV magazine of the Canadian newspaper, The Toronto Star, I flew from Miami to New York to see the effect the months-long writers strike had had on the soap.
“It’s business as usual, creating romance and mayhem in the fictional town of Springfield, U.S.A., except that the producers are plotting the story and replacement writers are filling in the dialogue,” I wrote in the July 9, 1988 Starweek article. “Things have been a bit weird in Springfield ever since CBS ran out of scripts a few weeks into the strike and had to bring in substitute writers. The actors and viewers hope somehow it’ll all make sense.”
While I interviewed one of The Guiding Light\'s stars in her dressing room, her on-screen fiancé walked in and they tried to make some sense out of the script that gave their break-up just one quick scene. They wondered if the show’s on-strike head writer knew about this.
That writer, I wrote in my article, “isn’t allowed contact with the producers during the strike. The actors miss her like kids miss their Mom, eager to tell her what the babysitter made them do. Other couples, too, have become victims of seemingly capricious plot twists and uncharacteristic behavior.”
After my trip to New York, I interviewed Pamela K. Long, the show’s head writer, on the phone, and told her about what these scripts have the characters doing, things the actors know are completely out of character. She agreed.
“‘I worry that if I start watching and don’t like it, I’ll be tempted to call management – and I’m not allowed to do that,’” I quoted her in my article.
Now, as in 1988, the first TV shows that will be affected by the writers’ strike are the late-night talk shows, whose monologues are written daily, followed by the daytime shows and soaps. Primetime dramas and comedies usually have anywhere from a couple to as many as a dozen scripts already completed at this point in the season.
As the strike approached, I wondered, What if authors went on strike?
What kind of books would editors, publishers, sales execs, distributors, and other non-writing publishing industry humans (and sub-humans) write in our place? And how would they feel when they found out what it’s like to be in our shoes, and at our notepads, computers, and typewriters?
Let’s take a look at some of those books:
What Are Those Wiggly Things on the Page: A Publisher Discovers Words
This Isn’t As Easy As It Looks: A Sales Exec Tries to Write a Sentence
Whaddya Mean You’re Not Going to Promote My Book: The Suicide Writings of a Publicist-Turned-Author
Stock Schmock, Just Get My Damned Book on the Shelves: The Desperate Memoir of a Book Distributor
This Advance Sucks: An Editor Screws Himself
I would jokingly predict that some knucklehead would sign Britney Spears’ mother to write a parenting book, but wait – that already happened.
For real.
What a world – when the real books outdo almost anything you could think of as a parody.
I’m sure many journalists, authors, and writers join me in sending good wishes to our TV and film writing brethren.
May Santa and Hannukah Harry bring you a Happy & Healthy New Contract!
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Nina L. Diamond is a journalist, essayist, and the author of Voices of Truth: Conversations with Scientists, Thinkers & Healers. Her work has appeared in numerous publications, including Omni, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, and The Miami Herald.
Ms. Diamond was a writer and performer on Pandemonium, the National Public Radio (NPR) satirical humor program, for its entire run in Miami and select markets nationwide from 1984-1998. As an editor, she works frequently with other authors and journalists on both fiction and non-fiction.