Writer's Guild America ON STRIKE!
As a writer and a blogger I am supporting the WGA on their strike. Hollywood and New York where most of the prime time shows are created has to support its writers and offer a bigger piece of the pie that is the world we as a people demand in entertainment. The old TV is nothing without the people that actually write the material that the actors and show host talk about day and night. Average pay for an entertainment writer is about $60,000 per year. Good money but if your work is under a contract and the contract is busted… there might be a problem.
Just writing this blog here is invigorating for me but then again I love to write. I put a ton of hours in creating the work that you read here and I do it for me and for you as a reader. I wish that I could make a living from just blogging other than working for XYZ company doing ABC and writing for Papamoka Straight Talk on the side. That is not the reality of blogging today. My advertisers don’t pay any bills here so I write for the love of writing. One or two dollars in Google clicks does not make me a wealthy man. From the point in time of starting this blog and my contributions to all other blogs that I write for I have received nothing in compensation. I am cool with that becuase my voice has been heard on many sites like the Gun Toting Liberal, Michael Linn Jones and Bring It ON! My works have been linked to Crooks and Liars, Slate Magazine, Imus in the Morning and the list goes on and on. Far greater minds than mine but my voice was heard in the written word. I consider myself blessed for my friends on each of these sites. Blogging is far different than writing for the studios and networks though.
All of the writers on strike with the WGA make a living writing, a meager living, bottom of the food chain living for all the shows you see on television. Would it tick you off if your work was sold on line and you receive nothing for the work you have done? Would it piss you off if they boxed your work and sold it in sets all over the world and you received nothing for the work? The LA Times has a great following of the Writers Guild of America strike, if you are a union working person and support other unions on strike then this is the site for you…
Jim Earl is very frustrated. He says the media keeps giving out the impression that TV writers get $200,000 a year. "I don't make anywhere near that," he says. (He won't say how much he makes, but says it's less than that.)
The 48-year-old Echo Park resident has been a writer on Fox's "Talk Show With Spike Feresten" for the show's second season. It's been his steadiest gig since he left Manhattan for Los Angeles about three years ago. "I was a writer on 'The Daily Show' and I was making about $100,000," he says. "I was making a good living, but I couldn't afford to live in New York on that salary. So I came here."
He looks hopeful but yet a bit weary as he walked a picket line today, wearing a black WGA "Comedy Writer" shirt. Before he landed the late-night show, he had a small radio show, did some stand-up, and also did some freelance writing work. He and his wife live in an apartment -- "I can't yet afford to buy anything." - LA TIMES - Strike News
I’m looking at the argument that is the strike from the writers side just as I would as a published author. If my book is written and made into a movie, if it becomes a series, if it becomes marketable in any form then the writer should receive monetary gain from it. There should be no difference for products created by any studio by any writer. There is a difference with being a writer for a signed objection and project and that product produced being re-sold at a later date for more monetary gain for all of the rest of the people connected with the project. That is not the case for the original writers.
I’ll miss the episodes of House, Ghost Whisperer, and of course all of the late night television comedy. Oh crap! Comedy Central is busted too! I may go into withdrawal without my Colbert Report. Word on the street and on the air is that Jon Stewart of the Daily Show from Comedy Central is paying his writers their full salaries while the strike goes on out of his own pocket. I have not been able to confirm that as yet but that is the word on the street. Let’s see who else has the guts to back up the writers that make them look good on the old idiot box we call television. I’ll survive and so will you. Right is right and the writers deserve just compensation for the work they provide to make the stars of our world of entertainment look good. It’s just common sense when you really think about it.
Papamoka
Just writing this blog here is invigorating for me but then again I love to write. I put a ton of hours in creating the work that you read here and I do it for me and for you as a reader. I wish that I could make a living from just blogging other than working for XYZ company doing ABC and writing for Papamoka Straight Talk on the side. That is not the reality of blogging today. My advertisers don’t pay any bills here so I write for the love of writing. One or two dollars in Google clicks does not make me a wealthy man. From the point in time of starting this blog and my contributions to all other blogs that I write for I have received nothing in compensation. I am cool with that becuase my voice has been heard on many sites like the Gun Toting Liberal, Michael Linn Jones and Bring It ON! My works have been linked to Crooks and Liars, Slate Magazine, Imus in the Morning and the list goes on and on. Far greater minds than mine but my voice was heard in the written word. I consider myself blessed for my friends on each of these sites. Blogging is far different than writing for the studios and networks though.
All of the writers on strike with the WGA make a living writing, a meager living, bottom of the food chain living for all the shows you see on television. Would it tick you off if your work was sold on line and you receive nothing for the work you have done? Would it piss you off if they boxed your work and sold it in sets all over the world and you received nothing for the work? The LA Times has a great following of the Writers Guild of America strike, if you are a union working person and support other unions on strike then this is the site for you…
Jim Earl is very frustrated. He says the media keeps giving out the impression that TV writers get $200,000 a year. "I don't make anywhere near that," he says. (He won't say how much he makes, but says it's less than that.)
The 48-year-old Echo Park resident has been a writer on Fox's "Talk Show With Spike Feresten" for the show's second season. It's been his steadiest gig since he left Manhattan for Los Angeles about three years ago. "I was a writer on 'The Daily Show' and I was making about $100,000," he says. "I was making a good living, but I couldn't afford to live in New York on that salary. So I came here."
He looks hopeful but yet a bit weary as he walked a picket line today, wearing a black WGA "Comedy Writer" shirt. Before he landed the late-night show, he had a small radio show, did some stand-up, and also did some freelance writing work. He and his wife live in an apartment -- "I can't yet afford to buy anything." - LA TIMES - Strike News
I’m looking at the argument that is the strike from the writers side just as I would as a published author. If my book is written and made into a movie, if it becomes a series, if it becomes marketable in any form then the writer should receive monetary gain from it. There should be no difference for products created by any studio by any writer. There is a difference with being a writer for a signed objection and project and that product produced being re-sold at a later date for more monetary gain for all of the rest of the people connected with the project. That is not the case for the original writers.
I’ll miss the episodes of House, Ghost Whisperer, and of course all of the late night television comedy. Oh crap! Comedy Central is busted too! I may go into withdrawal without my Colbert Report. Word on the street and on the air is that Jon Stewart of the Daily Show from Comedy Central is paying his writers their full salaries while the strike goes on out of his own pocket. I have not been able to confirm that as yet but that is the word on the street. Let’s see who else has the guts to back up the writers that make them look good on the old idiot box we call television. I’ll survive and so will you. Right is right and the writers deserve just compensation for the work they provide to make the stars of our world of entertainment look good. It’s just common sense when you really think about it.
Papamoka
Link to this post if you are a blogger and scream out loud on your site that writers deserve a better deal! As a blogger you are a writer and your work is just as good if not better...
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posted by Papamoka at
8:24 PM
3 Comments:
i hope the strike last until they can really put the squeeze on the studio's and the producer. i know that this is a really important strike. what they do with this strike is setting up what will happen in SAG. 1st to hear a studio or a person of the studio say that the writer are getting aleast $200.000. is really ridiculous compare to the thousand that they are getting. I would really be pissed off to see something that i have written is being sold on the internet for $1.99 an or the 1st season of it being sold in target. i do'nt get anything much for it. But you the producer/ studio is getting a great heaping of my stuff. I DO HOPE THIS GOES ON UNTIL THE OSCARS TO SQUEEZE.THEY NEED WRITERS. UNLESS, RYAN SEACREST DOES IT . I DON'T THINK IF YOU ARE A HOST YOU ARE UNDER ANY UNION CONTRACT. NOW IF HE WERE TO DO THIS, HE WOULD REALLY SELL EVERYONE DOWN THE RIVER.
And thank God you ARE heard at The Gun Toting Liberal, my brother... we love ya over there. Good points (as always) and good food for thought for we bloggers. Lord knows The GTL doesn't pay my heating bill either...
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