WGA Strike 07: What You Need to Know

So, is the picket line where the cool kids hang? Nina Bargiel walked the walk and got a history lesson for her pains.

Bryan Burrough writes about the school yard fight between Sumner Redstone and David Geffen in the December Vanity Fair. You can see the level of people the WGA has to battle.

Walking the Line really gets it:

Part of the problem the networks and especially studios are having is a direct result of relying on an old business model that is simply not responding to the marketplace and they do not know how to adapt. Most who’ve created a show know how this manifests itself in our small microcosmic case: they want close-ended episodes for “syndication” purposes. Even in light of successes like Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty they refuse to believe their model is obsolete.

But the LAT readership seems clueless:
Does Oprah use non-union writers?
I feel a lot of these comments are the children of producers writing in from their dad’s compounds at Carbon Beach or Bel Air.
The writers on Telemundo and Univision don’t get health benefits or a pension.
It’s not my fault that you majored in English at Hampshire College and all you could do in Hollywood was write one episode of Gidget..

And finally, writers get some love. In support of the writer’s strike, The Roxy Theatre in West Hollywood is opening its legendary doors to all members of the Writers Guild of America.

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