A Writer's Life

Reviving the Blacklist

Today WGA members received an email from Patric Verrone, our Guild president, regarding the small number of writers who decided to go "financial core" during the strike. I have a great deal of respect for Patric, and I wholeheartedly supported the strike, but I found the wording, intent, and underlying message of the email offensive, particularly this:

[...]there were a puny few who chose to do otherwise, who consciously and selfishly decided to place their own narrow interests over the greater good. Extreme exceptions to the rule, perhaps, but this handful of members who went financial core, resigning from the union yet continuing to receive the benefits of a union contract, must be held at arm’s length by the rest of us and judged accountable for what they are – strikebreakers whose actions placed everything for which we fought so hard at risk.

He went on to include a link to a list of those writers, who number less than two dozen.

Patric's letter, and his rallying cry to scorn those writers, harkens back to one of the darkest chapters in entertainment history for writers -- the blacklist.  In my view, Patric is asking us to engage in that same, despicable behavior... to exclude these writers from work opportunities because of their political views. While I strongly disagree with what those writers did, I resent the Guild asking me to blacklist them because of it.

The writers who went financial core objected to the strike but at least they followed the rules to express their dissatisfaction. I can respect their courage and integrity if not their views. They didn't hide in the shadows, saying one thing ("I support the strike!") and doing another (writing scab scripts for a daily soap). They stood up and were willing to be held accountable for their actions.

I would, at least to some degree, understand Patric's suggestion if he was talking about the people who actually scabbed...who toiled in secret, writing scripts for shows while the rest of us were walking the picket lines and losing our incomes.  Go after the scabs, expose them, fine them, throw them out of the Guild. I am all for that.

But tarring-and-feathering the writers who went financial core, and suggesting that we not hire them, is wrong.  The boards of the WGA West and East should be ashamed of endorsing this wrong-headed action and supporting this offensive letter.

UPDATE: The complete text of Patric Verrone's letter, and a spirited debate about it, can be found at Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily.

UPDATE: WGA members Craig Mazin and John August share their opinions about the letter.

UPDATE 4/22/08: Nikki Finke reports that the AMPTP has filed an unfair labor practices charge with the NLRB over the WGA's letter. The AMPTP statement reads, in part:

By publicly naming names and encouraging people who have the power to hire writers to keep them "at arm's length," and saying they must be "judged accountable" it is clear the WGA leadership is seeking to deny employment to these writers in the future. That is a direct violation of federal labor law, and as the employers of those writers we have a responsibility to defend them and the rule of law in this case.

I don't condone the AMPTP's motives for filing the charges, but their statement is absolutely right and I hope the NLRB slaps the WGA with stiff sanctions for this. For the first time since I joined the WGA, I am ashamed of my Guild and its leadership. The WGA Board needs to apologize for what they have done.

UPDATE 4/26/08:  I have now heard from three board members, two of whom said that they were blindsided by the letter. They told me that the Board had voted to release the names of the fi-core writers, but they had no idea that the membership would be told not to associate with them. I am hoping that there will be a clarification and/or apology to the membership following the next board meeting.

Why Should Authors Care About the WGA Strike?

Michael Connelly, Elizabeth Cosin, and Terrill Lee Lankford were among the MWA many members who have showed up to walk alongside the striking screenwriters on picket line recently. Obviously, there are many authors who are also WGA members (like Paul Levine, Robert Crais, Andrew Klavan, Steve Cannell, Lawrence Block, Eric Garcia, Mark Haskell Smith, Seth Greenland, Elmore Leonard, Donald Westlake, Robert B. Parker, Larry McMurtry, George Pelecanos, and myself, to name just a few). But why should a non-screenwriting author give a damn about how the strike turns out?

The answer is simple. Because we are a community of writers...not just book writers or screen writers. We should be concerned about any efforts to limit the royalties that writers receive from the commercial exploitation of our creative work.

Many of the corporations that own the studios and networks also own many major publishing companies...if they succeed in limiting what screenwriters get from new media, they will only be encourage to seek similar "rollbacks" from authors and other artists who, incidentally, don't have the benefit of being represented by a powerful union. The final deal struck between the corporations and the WGA in those emerging markets could create a template  or how writers of books, computer games, and other media are treated.

SAG President Alan Rosenberg put it best: "This fight is for the rights of all creative artists and our collective future is at stake."

How they think

My friend Jack Bernstein directed me to an excellent article by a former corporate attorney-turned-writer that's full of insights into the AMPTP's negotiating strategy.

Regardless of what camp you fall in, everyone is grasping for an explanation of why the studios are acting the way they are. That’s because with the exception of a few carefully prepared press releases, a trade ad or two, and some supposed “leaked” stories, we haven’t heard directly from any of the CEOs about the strike. We’ve only heard from Nick Counter – their point man. Their lawyer.

I’m here to tell you, as a former litigator who spent several years at one of the biggest corporate law firms in the world, that we’re all in engaged in a huge lawyering game, and things are proceeding accordingly.

Going Too Far

TV Guide's Michael Ausiello reports that VERONICA MARS creator Rob Thomas has considered continuing the cancelled series a comic book...but has been warned off the project by the WGA. Thomas says:

"I had a second meeting with DC comics. I heard that the [WGA] didn't want [TV writers penning TV-based] comic books during the strike as it would promote a network property. We're investigating whether there are similar hurdles for a defunct TV series like Veronica Mars. Naturally, I won't be writing it if the Guild doesn't want me to, but we're hoping that's not the case."

I am a strong supporter of the WGA and of the strike, but if what Thomas says is true, the Guild is going way, way too far. The Guild has absolutely no jurisdiction over any writing that their members do in the publishing industry. It would be a big stretch, legally and ethically, for the WGA to call writing a VERONICA MARS comic book, or a MONK tie-in novel for that matter, an activity that undermines the strike effort in any way. 

In my case, if I used the WGA strike as an excuse not to honor my publishing contract to deliver my next MONK novel, then Penguin/Putnam, which has no ties whatsoever to the AMPTP, would sue me... and win.

(Thanks to TVSeriesFinales for the heads-up and to Aintitcool for the graphic).

A Good Word on the Strike

My friend Gregg Hurwitz, author of THE CRIME WRITER, sums up my feelings on the strike better than I can.  He's also better looking than me:

Coming to Hollywood as an author, I was amazed at the benefits and infrastructure provided to me as a screenwriter. Health care. Pension. Residuals. Minimums. There’s not a day I’ve worked in L.A. that I’m not grateful for these benefits—benefits that provide for my family and that allow me to continue to do my job. These benefits were won by the sweat and courage of men and women who had much more to lose and who took greater risks than those before us now. These benefits were won by the sacrifices others made for future generations, for me.

This membership, this year, cannot dissipate those gains. We cannot cave in to an unfair deal that writers decades from now will be saddled with. This is a watershed contract. Future writers will look back to this year, to this contract, to us, every day as they live with what our resolve and respect for writing yielded. They can look back on us with the same gratitude we look back on those who came before us. Or they can look back with disappointment.

We’d be well served to remember that this contract isn’t just for us.

Crime Scene Picket

I just got back from picketing in the rain with hundreds of my fellow TV crime writers and the casts of their hits shows outside the headquarters of the AMPTP, which we wrapped in crime scene tape. It was a terrific event that once again demonstrated how amazingly unified and determined the Guild is. The AMPTP has greatly underestimated our dedication to our cause. It was also great to see so many supporters from SAG and the DGA, as well as novelists like Michael Connelly from the Mystery Writers of America and Christa Faust from the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers. Celebs included the stars of NUMBERS, CSI, THE UNIT, RENO 911, BONES, and DEXTER and showrunners like Carlton Cuse (LOST), Shawn Ryan (THE SHIELD), Rene Balcer (LAW AND ORDER) and Naren Shankar (CSI). And there were mobs of reporters there as well, so I'm sure we got a lot of press out of the event. (Photos 1. The AMPTP wrapped in crime scene tape. 2. Me and Michael Connelly. 3. CSI's Marg Helgenberger and Rene Balcer read the indictment against the AMPTP. 4. William Rabkin and Robert Patrick from THE UNIT. 5. Striking Writers and actor Keith Carradine listen to speakers.)

Variety Survey

Variety is doing a survey of its readers. Here's most of it (there were a couple of questions that I didn't correctly copy-and-paste...but the browser wouldn't let me go back to get'em. If I recall correctly, one asked if I belonged to a Guild and, if so, which one and the other asked me if I was Hispanic):

Who Says There's Anything Wrong with a Network Affiliate Owning a City's Only Newspaper?

I liked Ken Levine's observation about the Los Angeles Times' coverage of the WGA Strike:

Good news! The LA TIMES has begun its Oscar coverage with a weekly special section called THE ENVELOPE. Meanwhile, strike coverage has been relegated to the Business Section. I somehow can’t see THE DETROIT FREE-PRESS not running stories about an auto strike on page one. But then again GM doesn’t own the DETROIT FREE-PRESS.

The Times is owned by Tribune, which also owns KTLA, one of the major affiliates of CW, one of the TV networks hit by the strike.

Is Variety Publishing Lies?

Nikki Finke posts a brutal analysis of Variety's strike coverage, accusing the trade publication and its reporters of printing total falsehoods.

The trade's Jason Blairs -- oh, excuse me, Josef Adalian and Dave McNary -- keep inventing stories which purport to show that less than 2 weeks into the strike wither the WGA's resolve is withering, and/or its writers are going back to work, and/or even its late show iconic hosts are going to double-cross their teams of scribes. Just one problem: those stories are either totally fabricated or highly exaggerated.

[...]First, there was McNary's article wrongly claiming the WGA was backing off its position on changing on Reality TV. (See my previous,  WGAW Says Variety Scoop Has No Reality). Then, there was Adalian's and McNary's fabricated story about The Young And The Restless soap opera writers returning to work by opting for "financial core" status with the WGA.

Both stories turned out to be totally false. Variety's tiny correction on the soap opera story was buried in the back pages a few days later.

My take on this is that Variety's so-called "reporters" are so used to retyping press releases and passing them off as "reporting" that they have no idea how to actually report a story. So they are simply publishing whatever their studio and networks sources feed them without bothering to do the basic work of a reporter.

But they also have no incentive to do any actual reporting. I know what I am talking about. Twenty years ago, I worked as a reporter for a trade publication. I know the pressure the advertising side exerts on the editorial side. The wall between the two in the trade publication world is very, very thin. By nature, trade publication rely entirely on advertising by the industry they are reporting on, which raises all kinds of ethical issues every single day. The fact is that the editors are under enormous pressure not to piss off the people who keep them in business...and those people aren't screenwriters.

We Are At An Impasse, Jack Bauer.

This strike video gave me a few laughs...