Letterman Takes The Lead

Already having vowed to pay his staff's salaries through the end of the year due to the WGA strike, David Letterman is once again stepping up to the plate and going to bat for the embattled WGA, offering to bargain with them directly as opposed to through the AMPTP.

So, what does this mean for the writers? Well, it means that they could begin bargaining with each individual production company, as opposed to all of them as a whole (the AMPTP), effectively breaking the stranglehold that they've had on the industry for the past 25 years. Bonus! Anything that sticks it to the man is good in my book.

As a WGA supporter, I couldn't be happier to see Dave taking the stances he's taken all throughout the strike. He's really earning his place as one of the most powerful men in Television, and he's doing it by standing up for the little guys (the Writers) and telling Goliath (the studios) where the line has been drawn.

Here's your link, and here's your Fark Thread. Now, get out there and support the WGA and David Letterman!

Support the WGA Strike!

The Writers' Guild of America, the people responsible for bringing you the crap you see on TV and in the movies, are on strike, and I (for one) am supporting the hell out of them. They're getting screwed over by the studios in a big way, who are refusing to pay them their due residuals from past projects. So the Daily Show, Colbert Report, Talk Shows and now the new Dan Brown flick Angels and Demons (the book that came BEFORE The Da Vinci Code) are on hiatus, and it's only just the beginning...

The last writers' strike was back in 1988, and my recollection of it stems from the fact that it made Season 2 of Star Trek: TNG about four episodes short that year. Back then, though, it was tough for the WGA to make their point to the masses, whom the studios want to convince that writers are nothing but a bunch of millionaire crybabies. The only rich crybabies trying to horde money are the studios themselves.

You see, for every $20 DVD that's sold, the writer(s) behind it get a whopping $0.02. Every time a TV show is shown, same thing. BUT. When a full episode of a show like Heroes is shown on the internet, complete with commercials, the writers don't get jack. Why? Even though there are paid commercials during the webcast, the studios still call it "promotional," exploiting a bad decision on the part of the WGA from an earlier bargaining agreement, dating all the way back to the dawn of VHS.

At any given time, fully half of the WGA's 12,000 strong membership is unemployed. They have families, mortgages, bills, and lives, just like us. When there's no work, those residuals become VERY important. Screwing out of them is just wrong. To illustrate their key points, several writers have taken to YouTube to make their point, and the Blogosphere is catching on and posting them everywhere they can in an effort to shed light on the WGA's struggle.

Wil's been a big supporter of the WGA's efforts, posting and linking whenever he can. So, taking a page (almost literally) from WWdN:IX, here are some of the WGA videos, including one from the writers of The Colbert Report which hillariously and damn-near correctly describes the attitudes of the Studios and their BS rhetoric. Enjoy!

Why We Fight

From the Colbert Report Writers (via WWdN:IX)

Support the WGA...