Strike Watch: Best Of The Blogs

– The press blackout of the WGA and the AMPTP has been lifted. According to a press release jointly signed by WGA West President Patric M. Verrone and WGA East President Michael Winship, ”Our inability to communicate with our members has left a vacuum of information that has been filled with rumors, both well intentioned and deceptive.”

– Conan O’Brien, who is paying nearly 80 non-writing employees out of his own pocket, is growing a strike beard. (link via Popwatch)

– Although ”The Office” was one of the first television shows to go dark because of the strike, someone is updating the popular television show’s blogs. Is that person a Guild member? ”Can a WGA member write for [a struck-company owned TV show] blog during the strike,” asks Jonathan Handel of the Digital Media Law blog (via our frenemy Hoffa):

”I spoke with WGA spokesman Gregg Mitchell, and his answer was an emphatic ‘No.’ A TV show’s fictional blog is just ‘an extension of the same show,’ he stated, and the writing is therefore prohibited.”

(image via wgaeast)

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