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That the studios and networks have been twisting the truth about the WGA strike to suit their own purposes looks to be standard operating procedure during this strike. That happens on the other side of this labor dispute, too. But no company seems to be doing this more than Disney/ABC. For instance, all comments (not just some) that are even mildly friendly to the WGA are quickly deleted from ABC.com. Here is one striking writer’s experience on Tuesday: “I was on ABC.com today when I saw the Leno story and that there were comments where writers were being bashed and scabs promoted. I defended writers and less than two minutes later the comments were deleted. I tried again and, once again, my comments were deleted. Talk about ABC/Disney censorship.”
The above wouldn’t seem as scary if Disney didn’t own an international news operation, ABC, which is supposed to report accurately and consider both sides of an issue.
But it gets worse.
ABC recently held a ”Strike Educational Seminar”. Its purpose was described thusly: “With each day of the WGA strike, more articles and opinions circulate in the media. Now is your chance to hear the real issues in question. Please join Mark Pedowitz and Marc Sandman for a brief discussion of the strike and its challenges.” According to an account of the seminar from a Disney/ABC employee who wishes to remain nameless but whose identity I have confirmed, very little about this presentation was truthful.
[But, first, a personal note: I'm told during the seminar I was called "Tokyo Rose" -- a reference to the English-speaking female broadcasters used by Japan to disseminate anti-American propaganda during World War II. This is not merely a garden variety insult. This is an odious comparison with all its implications to use against anyone, much less a journalist.]
Here is the account given me of the ABC strike seminar:
“I went for selfish reasons, hoping to get the answer to the question, Will I lose my job? But I also wanted to hear what these folks had to say, and I was shocked. Sandman, a labor lawyer here, did not refrain from editorializing every chance he got. Rather than discuss what this meant for the studio in a pragmatic sense (2008 pilots, jobs, bonuses, etc.), he totally BASHED the WGA at every turn. These were some of the salient points this little blowhard spread to no less than 150 employees:
“1. The Guild wanted to strike way back in July. The AMPTP was ready to bargain then, but the WGA refused.
“2. They never spend more than 3 hours at the table, and this is the Guild’s fault. Basically, says he, Verrone and Young are novices who’ve never done this before and as such read from a script at the table, then leave. When talks broke off the last time it was because the WGA handed the AMPTP their proposals, then left. According to him, the AMPTP was ready to work things out.
“3. The main issues for the WGA, which the AMPTP considers unacceptable are: 1) sympathy strikes; 2) reality and animation; and 3) the issue of distribution, which says that the WGA is insisting on a provision whereby no network or studio can acquire a product unless the writer(s) of that product are complying with WGA rules. This is what he had the audacity to say. He also said that in terms of streaming and downloads, the AMPTP has a proposal that is absolutely workable.
“4. The DGA is a much more responsible, reasonable union. The DGA had one tiny strike in the last 40 years, while the WGA strikes every chance it gets.
“5. The main reason the WGA is striking is political. The main reason the Guild wants to unionize reality and animation is to create more revenue stream through dues. (!!!!!!) It has nothing to do with caring about writers. And, he said, because Patric Verrone used to write for animation, he has a particular beef with that.
“6. He referred to the strikes as a “traveling circus”.
“The thing that killed me is that people in the audience were buying it. During the Q&A, questions such as “What can we do to to help the studio’s cause?” were asked. I almost lost it, and my cheeks were so red I felt like I suddenly had a 104 fever. The way this information was presented — in addition to being complete bullshit — was absolutely unacceptable and irresponsible. This asshole was given a theater to act out his own personal vendetta against the WGA to an audience that doesn’t know any better. It was awful.
“Feel free to spread this far and wide, to Writeraction and Nikke Finke (who he referred to as “Tokyo Rose”).”
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I love this website. Nikki’s connections make her the Drudge Report of the writers’ strike.
I don’t care about the rhetoric, though. I care about what’s actually happening. It doesn’t suprise me that a corporation would try to spin its employee in this way. It’s to be expected. And it’s not wrong. The perspective is wrong, not the tactics.
The Tokyo Rose bit, though, is slanderous on a number of levels. Not only is it sexist and racist, it presupposes that the information on deadlinehollywooddaily.com is propaganda. I guess that would make the AMPTP the Allies? Who is Hirohito?
I guess this is what happens when Disney suits need to write their own material…
How dare one of the studios take the time to address its employees on the status of the strike and then give a one-sided assessment that is pro-them. I mean, the WGA would never bring a group of their membership together in a rally and then do nothing but spew venum against the companies that have made them all rich.
If it’s so horrible to work at a studio let me remind you…the guards at the gate aren’t there keeping you in. You’re welcome to leave at any time.
They even censor the shows’ message boards. No one EVER moderates those boards, except when threads about the strike are published, in which case messages simply dissapear.
disney has always been known as the “sweat shop”, k-mart studio
nikki is not biased
when she reports the amptp view, it simply turns out they are using her not to express an honest pov, of which they are incapable, but use her to further their machinations and manipulations
they do play dirty, that is how they got where they are, if people buy into their propaganda it will continue, although these particular men are on their way out as they are destroying the congloms they run
without nikki there would be no other pov .. rock on, nikki!
wake up, america, your news outlets and public airwaves have been hi-jacked by corporate agendas
corporations are telling you what to think, giving you the news that serves them, distorting, lying…
and it just got worse yesterday when shock of shocks kevin martin at the fcc handed corporations another giant holiday present – more media ownership
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hlYj9ojD7umgLJiTK_I0DfwU50iAD8TK5UBO1
So Mickey’s a big baby: Nothing new here, keep moving.
Great turn-out at City Hall today. Plus… we all got a crash course in (one aspect of) the fight over the, uh, “re-development” of Skid Row.
(Did anyone get the sense that “Ms. Ling” has ruffled a few developer-feathers? Or some of their partners in City Hall?)
Affordable housing?! Can you find a new condo down there for less than 500k?
Funny – the first time I saw a shill/troll post on this site, the words that leaped to mind were “Tokyo Rose.”
The taunting tone, issued from a safe distance, seemed to fit perfectly.
The name “Tokyo Rose” is most often associated with Iva Toguri D’Aquino (born Ikuko Toguri, July 4, 1916, Los Angeles, California). A U.S. citizen by birth who was visiting relatives in Japan at the time of the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was unable to leave after the start of hostilities. She refused to renounce her American citizenship and was subsequently treated as an enemy alien.
Toguri risked her life smuggling food into Prisoner of War (POW) camps and subsequently gained the trust of the American and Australian inmates. To support herself she took work at the Japanese radio show The Zero Hour as a transcriber and later as an on air announcer. After she indicated her refusal to broadcast anti-American propaganda, Toguri was assured by her producers that they would not write scripts having her say anything against the United States.
After the war, she was investigated and released when the FBI and the U.S. Army’s Counter Intelligence Corps found no evidence against her. “Tokyo Rose” was actually a legend generated by allied military personnel for the amalgam of female broadcasters working for the Japanese government who spread falsehoods to help undermine the Allied war effort. At no time did Toguri call herself “Tokyo Rose” during the war. Further, no anti-Allied propaganda was found in her broadcasts.
However, upon her return to the United States, the influential gossip columnist and radio host Walter Winchell lobbied against her. She was charged and subsequently convicted of treason and given a sentence of 10 years. She was released after serving six years. It was then discovered that the men that had delivered the most damaging testimony against her had been coerced and admitted to lying under oath. On January 19, 1977, she was pardoned by U.S. President Gerald Ford, who also restored her citizenship.
Gavin Polone would be a far more appropriate illustration of a true “Tokio Rose” inspired propagandist and traitor. It is Polone, not Nikki Finke, that has appeared on the conglomerate-owned FOX News in an attempt to reach the masses with his disinformation. Nikki is simply reporting the stories and the facts, even if they don’t meet the approval of the tyrannical AMPTP. It’s called right and wrong… reporting the news (Nikki) or spreading lies (Gavin).
- Sloop John B
Okay, I was actually at the meeting in question …and in fact, I was the guy who asked what we (the Evil Corporate Employees, that is) could do to help …and while yes, Marc Sandman may not have been the most eloquent of speakers, he was certainly not spewing any of the wretched nonsense some of you seem to have heard. Do the Studios have their side? Of course they do, and so does everyone else. The bottom line is getting back to work! Yeah, WORK! (*That’s what most of us have to do for a living …even us lowly little Corporate minions.) Work is what this “strike” continues to take away from many hard working folks in this wonderful Industry of ours. So to that, I say shame on all of you. You are equally as RESPONSIBLE for people loosing their jobs as the Studios are. So please, for all of our sakes, PLEASE …sit back down and start behaving like the highly educated adults that you are. Work it out. FIND A WAY!!! PLEASE! YOU can put people back to work. But if you insist on “Striking” …then at least have the intestinal fortitude to do it ALL DAY. Stop leaving at 2pm. And if have any self-respect at all, stand in the rain! Or stop calling it a “strike”!
“Verrone and Young are novices who’ve never done this before and as such read from a script at the table, then leave.”
I highly doubt that, but at least they have a script! Where’s your scripts AMPTP? What couldn’t write one?
“Tokyo Rose” is really a mean term to throw around. For a journalist, that’s the worst. That’s like calling an actor “Carrot Top” or a singer “William Hung.”
I don’t understand point 5. Even if the strike was political and the move to unionize reality TV and animation was as well, the obvious tactical reason for this would be so that all shows are bargaining chips for any future strikes/contract negotiations. Getting more union dues as a reason seems preposterous.
Does anyone have any kind of intelligent retort to the points brought up on behalf of the AMPTP by these execs?
I just know this…America’s Hero Thomas Payne would be ashamed of our modern press. To subvert the news because it might make them look bad.
I think it’s time for Congress to split off the news divisions from these megabiz because where we at now, it’s just terrible have a few men control global media.
What I find so very interesting is that without the writers, who are the foundation of this business there is none.
Also the AMPTP is pretty much saying the DGA is a weak union and can control them. I mean, why would you say and think the DGA would accept anything the AMPTP would offer to them over New Media, that the MegaBiz would trumpet a deal is in place already or that they are easier to control.
If I was in the DGA, I would be insulted that are needs are easy to manage and that we would have accepted that one time yearly $250.00 per one hour show and are works could be called promotional anytime the producers deemed fit.
The DGA what a great union…so great that the AMPTP didn’t mind outing you as their bitch!!!
If I were you I’d wear that Tokyo Rose slur as a badge of honor. It means you’re getting to them. I am so far removed from this event, I’m just a watcher of television, but even I can see the studios are being assholes. I’ve been to both the WGA and AMPTP websites, read through their stuff, and still come away with the notion that these studio guys are utter jerks.
A Drudge Report comparison is better than Tokyo Rose?
Yes, Nicky Finke is biased… biased toward the truth! (waits for audience to stop gasping, then:)
The AMPTP can’t seem to decide whether Patric Verrone and Dave Young are Machiavellian geniuses or blundering buffoons. I’ve known Patric personally for many years and I can report he is as devious as a banana, but also almost as smart as me. Nevertheless, it doesn’t matter. The negotiations are run by the Negotiating Committee, which is packed with heavy hitters with years of experience both as writers and producers. To counter them, all the AMPTP has is Nick Counter.
The WGA has made a bunch of proposals, all of which would be good for writers. (If you don’t think reality jurisdiction would be good, ask yourself how Fox would be feeling right now if American Idol was going to be shut down in January.)
The WGA proposals would cost the companies money and/or power, so they don’t like them. But, they’d cost a lot less than their lost advertising revenue, or Les Moonves’ salary, or Jeff Zucker’s suits. And a reasonably generous deal to the WGA would buy the companies 20 years of labor peace, until the next crazy technology comes along to mess things up. So all we have to do is bank on the intelligence of the American corporation…
Did anyone ever go broke banking on the intelligence of the American corporation?
It’s a little more than ‘spin’ if Sandman actually said that the WGA handed in a proposal and then WALKED AWAY from the talks. It’s an outright lie, contradicted by the AMPTP’s own statements on their web site.
The danger here is that almost no one in this industry is bothering to find out what’s going on for themselves. And if one of the seven major corporations involved in this action is completely and unabashedly lying to their affected employees and then advising them that a journalist who isn’t cowtowing to the conglomerates is somehow the bad guy (and by the way — I was told by an ABC executive recently that they were told not to read this site at all), then how is an agreement ever to be reached?
And, for all the flamers on here, if the AMPTP’s position is so fair and reasonable, why do they keep lying about it?
I have a friend who used to work at Disneyworld, and she was chilled to the bone by the place. She said that she and her fellow employees referred to the place as “Mouse-shwitz.
Unlike Disney/ABC, at least the NBC/Universal website doesn’t censor pro-WGA comments. At least, it doesn’t seem like they’re doing that.
Writers existed long before studios and will exist long after the studios have become obsolete. With the rapid improvement in quality and decrease in cost of consumer production equipment, I’m really starting to wonder why we don’t abandon this system and start creating content and reaping rewards without the interference of middle men.
Studios have a stanglehold over classic distribution channels like theaters and TV, but the internet is rapidly emerging as a means to provide creators with a low-cost platform with which to market and distribute their material.
Young adults are spending more time on the internet and watching less television. Also, the improvement in home entertainment technology and the inevitable rise of video piracy loom as threats to the current production and distribution model.
So why do we keep whoring ourselves out to a bunch of suits who place their interests over our own? Right now it’s a money issue. Studios have money. Studios control the channels that generate the big bucks for the real talent. As long as they can throw cash at writers, they’ll find writers willing to accept it. But…
Writers are the golden geese. And while it’s nice having these salesmen to help us manufacture and market our products, it’s important to remember that they cannot exist without us.
As the nature of the business continues to change, there may come a time when we find that we no longer need their services. Perhaps that time is upon us.
Comments not posted?
That’s news to me, but could explain a comment I submitted a few days back never appearing. I just assumed I’d forgotten to hit “submit.”
I’m a WGA member. I’ve worked steadily for a decade, and I think the Guild has good, fair points. I also believe we were herded into a strike, and I have to say the signs of that came early in publications such as Written By, which was chock full of propaganda by mid-summer.
But it doesn’t matter now.
I can’t blame Disney for presenting a BS town hall meeting, because it’s simply business, and politics, as usual. I feel certain our side would do the same, on the flip side of the coin.
This strike is a f-ing mess. If the DGA doesn’t solve it for us, which gives us a humiliation-free way out, it’s going to stretch on for months. And I for one miss writing, miss the producers, and miss the checks. Is the AMPTP full of villains? No. Are they greedy? Of course. It’s their nickels that fund the production. It’s their machine. They’re trying to protect it. We should expect to get screwed, and simply navigate to the kindest, least abrasive screwing possible.
Not a shill. Just…bored with this.
Where are the A-List writer/actors??? Why are they not shouting from the tallest mountain? Where is…
Ben Aflick – acadamy award winning writer
Matt Damon – acadamy award winning writer
Jerry Seinfeld – emmy award winning writer
George Clooney – acadamy award nominated writer
Bill Maher – emmy nominated writer (did he win?)
Most of those men will tear apart our administration (i agree with them) for wanting to destroy the middle class. Yet they will not come out and voice their disgust during our strike???
None of these men ever have to worry about working again. Yet they are quiet while we walk day in and day out.
Shame on them!
Dear “Frank Grimes” and other shills,
There is only ONE issue. Internet. As soon as the AMPTP addresses it, the strike is over and everybody goes back to work. Internet. That’s it. I promise you, every writer I know wants to get back to work, but the offer of 250 dollars for a year of streaming reuse makes it impossible.
Tokyo Rose? LOL! You’re well within your rights to take offense, but come on Nikki! There’s a certain degree of fabulousness there that cannot be denied. Nikki Finke, femme fatale!
Sorry you’re so bored with “this,” Harris, but it’s not exactly like the strike is unjustified. And I’ll thank you not to include me in the ass-rending you seem so eager for, no matter how kind or unabrasive.
I see anti-WGA and anti-Nikki posts all of the time in here. How can you call that censorship? Ant the use of the words “Tokyo Rose,” is like the “N” word to journalists; it’s just uncalled for. I would expect more professionalism from the multi-million dollar suites than to resort to name calling. Nikki, I’m an avid reader and my only complaint is the use of the occasional profanity. Other than that, keep it up.