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UPDATE: CBS & WGA In Messy Pissing Match Over Cancelled Democratic Debate
So much for anchor Katie Couric’s moment in the presidential political spotlight. That televised debate set for next month among the Democratic presidential candidates has been canceled to avoid a potential conflict with striking WGA writers. The decision was made by the Democratic National Committee concerning the embattled December 10th debate at CBS Television City in Los Angeles, where pickets gather every day. But the decision to cancel also coincides with the WGA saying this AM that CBS news writers are ”strongly considering” a December 10th strike date. The timing appeared to be an attempt by union leadership to disrupt the CBS debate plans for the same day. Candidates Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton have all said they won’t cross a picket line to participate in a debate.
UPDATE: What CBS said today: “CBS News regrets not being able to offer the Democratic presidential debate scheduled for December 10th in Los Angeles. The possibility of picket lines set up by the Writers Guild of America and the unwillingness of many candidates to cross them made it necessary to allow the candidates to make other plans.”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Thank you, thank you DNC!!! Now maybe the WGA board and CBS will rethink their strategy to what is best for the newswriters, etc., and the network and get back to the bargaining table prior to the WGA calling a strike. It’s bad enough that 12,000 WGA members have already had their holidays marred by jumping too quickly to strike. Why add another 500 to the picket lines right before the holidays when nothing will get done until after the first of the year?! Doesn’t it make more sense that everyone involved, CBS, WGA East and West, be reasonable and get back to the bargaining table now? If the CBS newswriters go out on strike in mid-December they’ll be out much longer than if they wait until a more opportune time, (early January when primaries and ratings begin) and that small percentage of a raise that CBS newswriters are negotiating for won’t make up for the potential loss of income by being out of work for weeks.
Ummm… don’t we WANT Democrats speaking eloquently on national television?
No great loss. The ratings would have been terrible anyway. At least this way Couric won’t get blamed for the bad showing. Her rep can’t take too many more blows.
ummm… no. we want them to support labor and this union.
Yes. When they have something to say that isn’t rehearsed gibberish.
Dear BeRealistic,
Why do you think the WGA jumped too soon to a strike? We’ve shut down close to a hundred shows in less than three weeks, and several movies have had to postpone. Pilot season, and the rest of this tv season, are both in jeopardy. We have leverage. If we’d waited til June to strike, the movie stockpiling would have been completed, and the TV season wouldn’t even have begun to air for three months. Summer is a time for reruns, and lower viewership of the now struck late night shows. In other words, it would have taken at least three months before the networks and studios even noticed the effect of our strike.
Yet you persist in repeating the studio mantra that the WGA struck too soon. We struck too soon for the studios, is what you really mean.
WGA East TV writer, on strike.
Well, BeRealistic is either amazingly uninformed, or a plant.
I’m guessing the latter, or he wouldn’t be spouting the “writers need to get back to the bargaining table” bs. The WGA has tried again and again to resolve this. The AMPTP will not budge or bargain whatsoever. I’m sick of hearing propaganda from the AMPTP claiming that the WGA is being unreasonable.
Dennis Kucinich wants this rescheduled
http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/11-28-2007/0004713408&EDATE=
and the WGA is telling people that CBS should take the blame for the cancellation because they wouldn’t negotiate fairly with the CBS News writers
http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Entertainment/2007/11/28/wga_cbs_to_blame_for_debate_cancellation/7598/
I guarantee you that this will be the talk of the Washington DC press for at least a day.
Who cares? Katie Couric is awful anyway.
I wonder if the Democratic candidates are still feeling so friendly towards the writers now.
What Brent said. Now if Susie Gharib (PBS’ Nightly Business Report) was supposed to moderate the debate, then yes, I’d be pissed it was canceled. But Couric? Bleh.