The WGA strike going on right now is not just about money, it’s about control. It’s a struggle between the creative class and the corporate class. Whatever deal the writers work out with the big media companies, individually they aren’t going to make that much more . But as a whole, they will have taken back a piece of our media system.
Here’s Marshall Herskovitz, President of the Producer’s Guild:
The problems of network ownership and creative control are not directly at issue in the current strike by the Writers Guild of America. What’s at stake is how writers will be compensated, given the control everyone assumes the big companies will exert over new methods of delivery.
But make no mistake — deep resentment in the entire creative community over the absolute power now wielded by these companies is the fuel that feeds the strike. The public is also fed up, turning out in droves and sending millions of e-mails whenever the FCC holds hearings on the subject. And yet the large corporations move forward, seemingly unaware that they are strangling the creative engine that might save them.
It’s a plot by the writers of Lost to buy more time and try to figure out how to get out of the giant hole they dug themselves in too.
oh man i love those office writers. i like the idea of putting the lawyers at the helm creatively.
the writers hold all the power in my view. creativity by definition cannot be controlled by an external force.
Exactly!…