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URGENT: Writers Guild president Patric Verrone is going on air telling radio and TV media today that the union will go after member Jay Leno for writing his own monologues. This is a 180-degree turnaround from the guild’s position yesterday that it didn’t want a battle with the late night TV host over this issue. Verrone just appeared on Fox. But he told The Thom Hartmann Show on Air America this morning, ”Jay is a longtime member of the guild and we’ve known him a long time and it’s clear to us that [writing his monologue] is a violation of the rule. There are strike rules and we’re going to have to enforce them against him.” Strike-breaking is a serious issue for the WGA and its strike rules require members to report any activity in that realm. Discipline for violations of a strike can include expulsion, suspension, fines and censure.
Meanwhile, I’ve learned exclusively that one of the reasons that the WGA was going to give Leno a pass was a privately communicated threat by Jay to go “Fi-Core” – aka financial core status — with the writers union. This comes to me from unofficial WGA sources. Under Fi-Core, a writer gives up full membership in the guild and withholds dues spent on political activities in order to continue writing during the strike. WGA members who go fi-core can’t be disciplined for working during a strike. But they still receive all the WGA benefits. The reason why most guild writers don’t go Fi-Core even when they disagree with union decisions is more than just the osctracism factor among their colleagues. It’s because even dissident members know going Fi-Core jeopardizes writer benefits like salaries, residuals, healthcare etc which must be negotiated with Big Media. But the bad PR from having Leno go Fi-Core clearly is not what the WGA leadership wanted right now as the strike drags on into a third month and solidarity is still holding. It’ll be interesting to see whether, now that the union is going after him for writing his monologue, Jay carries out the Fi-Core threat.
I’ve also learned exclusively that Leno wasn’t the only late night host complaining to the guild. ABC’s late night host Jimmy Kimmel, like Leno a WGA member, also requested and received his own private meeting with Verrone and other WGA leaders to discuss his unhappiness. In fact, I’m told that Kimmel and Leno were in constant phone contact with one another over the controversial issue of the WGA granting an interim agreement to David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants so that rival Late Show could go back on air with its team of writers. This is a fast-breaking story so stay tuned.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Wow. I’ve managed to hold out hope for Leno (Maybe he didn’t understand what he was doing, maybe he was somehow confused about the rules, etc) but if he goes fi-core then it’s all over.
He used to be my non-comedy central late night host of choice, but that’s going…going…gone.
Jay still does Sunday night shows at the Comedy & Magic Club in Hermosa for $30 a pop, plus two drink minimum. That’s a hundred-dollar date to attend an editing session for the week’s monologues. I can appreciate a solid work effort, but his actions make me wonder how big he intends his next garage to be.
He should go ahead and hire Dennis Miller to serve in Ed McMahon’ old position. He’s on every week now, right?
Bravo for Jay and Jimmy! Even if Jay goes Fi-Core he’ll always find plenty of writers to work on the show.
Verone is scared witless and is acting like a dork. As soon as a few big names go Fi-Core, the WGA unity will fall apart. Which would really be a shame.
Someone big enough to bitchslap both AMPTP and Verone needs to get involved now and get this strike settled.
Good Lord, this is an nightmare. But, thanks, Nikki, for explaining the jist of “Fi-Core” to those of us not in the know. I tried to research it elsewhere on the web but none of it made any damn sense.
Hi, Nikki,
The main reason WGA members don’t go Fi-Core is more than ostracism. Every member who goes Fi-Core weakens the guild and it’s future ability to negotiate.
If enough members go Fi-Core, the guild will be broken and Big Media can roll back on anything, salaries, residuals, healthcare.
I’ve only been in SAG for a year and have seen the Fi-Core pressure from the actor’s point of view.
I wish Jay Leno would take a page from Mort Sahl’s book and go on stage with a newspaper every night. He could just improvise off the headlines. It would be a creative challenge for him and also call attention to the writers’ cause.
Regards,
Bill Kelly
I’d give anything to be there the day that little weasel is escorted from the building in Burbank, they’ll have to carry him out clutching Zucker, trying to give him one last shoe shine with his own spit. It can’t happen to a more despicable, self-obsessed, backstabbing suckup.
Failing that, I’d give anything to be in the room with the WGA inner circle and hear what they were really thinking about the slimy, shameless blackmailer when they were writing all that crap about what a great guy he is. I guess asking the Guild to stop thinking about what benefits the membership and start thinking about what benefits your employer is pretty much the definition of “support.”
Cheer up, Jay, you blew your one chance to gain the respect in the industry you’ve always craved, but you’ll always have Drudge. And Jimmy, provided you can transform yourself into a corporate entity and give him a job, you’ll never, ever be able to rid yourself of Jay. Otherwise you’ll need to remember to pat him down every two seconds, keep him at least a football field length away at all times and watch out for boomerangs, grenades, and falling safes.
Let Jay go fi-core. Who’s gonna care, the scab writers he’s had do his monologue for all these years? He’s already gone fi-core. The WGA is finally noticing.
Leno will go down in history as a deceitful schmuck who is too dumb too realize he’s being USED by NBC. They already screwed him once, he’s too dumb to realize they’re screwing him again. Just like he was too dumb to own his own show like Letterman, Oprah, etc.
Karma, baby.
Bravo to Patric Varrone for evidently moving quickly to stop Jay… Leno has a chance to stand up for writers, or piss all over them… I hope he makes the right decision… I know Patric and the strike committee have made the right call… So C’mon Jay… Do the right thing. We’ll still love ya even without your writers. David Garber, WGA.
Leno is in a real bad spot with the monologues because he seems to be writing them to try to please everyone, and that never turns out well. Aren’t his writers upset he’s writing without them? He should just do a bad show – that’s what Conan is doing. And isn’t that the point? Without WGA and SAG the show is going to suck.
Why doesn’t Leno just retire now? Isn’t he done with the show next year anyway. He should just declare force majeur on his contract and walk away.
If the WGA didn’t get everything straight with Leno before he went back on the air, including what he could, and could not do, then exactly what were they thinking? Flip-floppery from Verrone doesn’t play well outside of the knights of the United Hollywood realm; it comes across as Huckabeean ignorance. This is one PR battle that will be lost on everyone except die-hard Guild members and if it doesn’t help to bring folks back to the table then what’s the point?
The WGA created this monster but giving special status to Letterman. A strike is a strike you pinheads. WGA effectively ‘broke’ the guild by splitting the union and playing favorites.
I never thought I’d feel sympathy for Leno but he’s right to be angry at the situation he’s been put in. Leno (and Kimmel and Conan) should not stand for being emasculated by a union they’ve been very loyal to. The deal with “Pants” is a farce. Letterman and Ferguson ultimately toil for Viacom the union should have never negotiated a side deal.
I don’t know if, legally, Jay could just resign from the WGA and continue to host the tonight show. If he can, that’s what he should do.
Financial core status is a legal compromise. It is permissible to require union “membership” as a prerequisite for work. But if there is such a requirement, a person is allowed to choose to pay the dues but not participate in or be bound by any union rules. Such a person is the beneficiary of any collective bargaining agreements, of course.
Fi-core is kind of freeloading, but it’s an important legal right. No one should have to follow union rules if he doesn’t choose to.
What a monumental fuck up. This should have all been handled so much more professionally by Verrone and company. It’s looking more and more like the WGA knew all the late night talkers were going back with or without writers and decided that they might get a small win and avoid being completely marginalized by doing the deal with WWP before it happened. But what they didn’t grasp was the massive backlash from the other late night talkers that the WWP deal would engender. Sorry, I like Dave much more than Leno but giving him the interim agreement was wrong. If one writer must strike, then they all must strike. This has managed to split the WGA in two groups, those with no hope of returning to work and those who got an exception on a whim. It was nothing more than a publicity stunt.
Here’s why the writers won’t win this thing:
The studios know how to manage PR and lock down communication with the press. When was the last peep you have heard out of the AMPTP? The may all be assholes but they present a united front.
The writers haven’t done a good job of this from the get go and they are getting worse at it with every passing day. While I find the articles here on DHD interesting, inevitably every single story posted has come from the WGA or someone connected to the WGA. All their dirty laundry manages to find it’s way to the surface for all to see. It’s funny, I read people here chastising others for complaining or not holding the party line in the comments section of DHD, what about the loud mouths that give up infomation that leads to 99% of the stories Nikki writes? All of Nikki’s inside sources are just perpetuating the major problems the WGA has created for itself.
Here’s an idea:
Shut the fuck up! It’s time for radio silence from the negotiating committee and anyone connected to it. Stop taking everything to press. Also, manage your membership. Find the leaks and plug them by any means necessary. Formulating your strategy in the public and at times by popular consensus is no way to do business. I hate to say this but you need to be more like your adversary in order to be taken seriously. Manage your PR through one unified source and lock down all other communication with the press.
If the WGA leadership can’t figure out a way to do these things then they need to be replaced. So far it looks like they don’t have a clue.
Hey, did any of you pinheads stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, Jay actually wants to put on a good show for his FANS? You know, the ones who watch and ultimately pay all the salaries? You whining bunch of malcontents make me sick. You want Jay to go on tv and twiddle his thumbs, which is saying a big FUCK YOU not to the networks but to the loyal fans who tuned in and got him to where he is. Jay IS loyal, maybe not to the piss and moan writers, but to the people who make all of your jobs possible.
I don’t take credit for this statement, but its true: without fans, your “work” is called a diary.
Here’s hoping you all get fired.
Leno is a two-faced jerk off. That’s been known for a while. It’s just more obvious than ever now.
The main thing is that no actors, A-List or otherwise (that’s you Bob Saget), go on Leno, Conan, or Kimmel.
“Middle America” may prefer Jay and his watered down humor, but I bet they get sick of his show after his third interview with Judge Judy in as many months.
I don’t watch Jay that much but isn’t his whole comedy thing the monologue? I don’t think he could function without his monologue. Maybe he would realise that he has talent he’s never tried before. It’s really pathetic that he pays comics for jokes when he has a staff doing, what?
“And now we want to take away the only thing they have left – their ability to be funny? We want them to sit idly by while their audience drifts to Letterman and Ferguson.”
That’s tragic. We didn’t actually take away his ability to be funny (I won’t go for the cheap-but-true joke, but I’m thinking it), just his ability to write material for a struck company. We also took away my ability to write dramatic material for a struck company, and everyone else’s ability to write any type of material for a struck company. Because, you know, WE’RE ON STRIKE. If I have any ramen left, I’ll eat it while thinking of Jay’s plight. Oh the humanity. We’re asking to sacrifice so much while we sacrifice so little, and he’s been such so brave and stalwart.
“Sure I want to hurt the networks, but I also want to have a job to come back to when this strike finally ends.”
Yeah, The Tonight Show is absolutely in danger of cancellation if it can’t bring in ratings during a strike. That will definitely happen. It’s the most plausible scenario ever. So we’ve simply got to turn a blind eye to scabbing and allow Leno to help prolong the strike. Putting pressure on NBC might induce them to cave which would pretty much ensure that everyone in the guild (5,000 or so working members, is it?) could go back to work, but enabling NBC to hold out indefinitely is pretty much a guarantee that what, 19 writer slots plus 150 btl slots, all so endangered right now, will be secure. Well, for the few months until they all lose their jobs anyway when Conan takes over. I don’t understand why so many writers seem to find Jay’s selfless, iron-clad logic so unpersuasive.
“Oh no – Patrick Verrone is turning into Captain Queeg from the Caine Mutiny. He’s going to lock down the ship and implement a paranoid fueled search for those WGA scabbing strawberries.”
Or in other words, he’s being forced by the membership to abide by our wishes and enforce the strike rules against his will when he should be doing…whatever it is you want him to do. You’re never that specific (which is sad, there’s a rich sea of talking points for you to swim in), but I have no doubt if you actually came up with something it’d be a masterstroke.
I’m strongly behind the writers’ demands, but I think going after Jay is a big tactical mistake.
The wording of the passage in question seems genuinely open to the interpretation that someone who wasn’t hired primarily as a writer (ie. an actor/star), would be allowed to write new material for their own performance. So while they couldn’t use old bits written previously by the writing staff, they could write new bits for themselves alone.
Punishing Jay for what seems like an honest difference of interpretation won’t have a good effect; it will make the WGA look bad or weak.
Let Jay write his monologues; let Jimmy and Conan write their own too; the monologues won’t be enough to hang onto viewers in the long run, especially when they can’t get good guests for the show because those guests won’t cross a picket line. (So pickets ARE important!)
And this is another way that Dave will benefit from his hard-fought interim deal; not only does he have his writers back, but no pickets at his shows = his choice of top of the line entertainment or political guests.
Unions working together to support each other will speed up a return to the negotiating tables and ultimately win this thing. So everyone should just be brave and be calm.
In union there’s strength—literally
looped linear, where do you see ambiguity? Here’s the guild’s statement: “The Strike Rules, among other provisions, prohibit Guild members from performing any writing services during a strike for any and all struck companies. This prohibition includes all writing by any Guild member that would be performed on-air by that member (including monologues, characters, and featured appearances) if any portion of that written material is customarily written by striking writers.” No ambiguity there whatsoever.
If you’re referring to the dispute between the WGA and NBC over what was said at the meeting, even according to NBC’s own version, Leno knew that he was in violation but thought he could get away with it because the guild would turn a blind eye to His Supreme Majesty.
Sure, let Jay scab, let Conan scab, let Jimmy scab–then what? Let everybody scab? When poor, obscure writers are brought up on charges we tell them no, no, the strike rules actually do apply to you, sure, all the late night hosts are in blatant, public violation and we let them off, but we just like them better than you. That’s some strength through unity right there.
Yea what a bastard Kimmel is for going back to work and letting his staff members feed their family. While were at it how dare he start a new segment showing previously aired skits so that his writers will still get residual payments while sitting on their collective asses. The nerve of that guy.
The public is siding with Jay. While you fight with yourselves and allow your union to play favoritism with side deals. No one other than union members expects Jay or anyone else to sit on the sidelines while Dave comes back.
Your union did a side deal that in the eyes of the public was nothing more than favoritism. You can’t unring that bell.
I miss your shows, I would like to see you get reasonable wages and benefits, but your tactics suck and I find it difficult to continue to support you.
I like the new writerless Leno. Much more edgy. I can’t stand watching Dave lately with his “The writers are getting screwed, Man!” joke every 3 minutes. We get it… And news flash, most of america couldn’t give a rats behind. I say go Leno.
You guys are a bunch of idiots. All of America is marveling at the fact you have already cost yourselves more than you stand to recoup (in lost wages) and have put a great deal of your industry into a standstill which is forcing thousands of others into personal bankruptcy as you walk your lines and change strategy on a daily basis. You give a hall pass to Letterman’s WWP but when Dick Clark gives the same concessions for the Golden Globes you say “No, we cannot help you” because it is more politically expedient to force that show off the air.
If more than 5% of you had any real talent we might care. The strike will be broken, you will wind up accepting what the studios last offer was and you may, just may, be able to go back to work without getting your asses kicked by all the people whose lives and credit got wrecked but your stunt.
This strike is going to end badly for the union. While union members post stories and comments on websites read only by industry insiders, the networks reach millions of people per day.
Now the union has made one of the most popular entertainers in America look like a victimized working stiff just trying to help folks feed their families. (Yes, plenty of folks in the industry have a different view of Jay, but his ratings say that Americans don’t care what industry insiders think. Jerry Seinfeld is not really warm and cuddly, either.)
Playing favorites among competing entertainers negated the union solidarity argument. Maybe striking Tonight Show writers should picket WWP studios.
The expected wave of public sympathy for striking writers never materialized. Some of the YouTube postings were pretty clever, but that’s a terribly small audience who does not watch much TV anyway.
It’s over. I enjoyed Jay’s show last night and I’ll watch again next week. And so will millions of other people who just want to be entertained. The newspapers and radio have dropped their coverage of the strike (outside of a 50 mile radius around LA), the bloggers see TV writers as competitors, and the networks are certainly not going to discuss it.
When the union let WWP get a special deal, they forced Jay and Jimmy and everyone else to get back on the air. As the far as the American public is concerned, the writer’s strike ended several days ago.
And so the viewing public is back to watching Britney self-destruct. Regading Britney – you just can’t write stuff this funny.