If It's In The Paper It Must Be True

In a Variety article, polls showing that the vast majority of Hollywood professionals feel that the WGA strike is losing cause.

"The town's opinions have budged a bit since the November survey on the question of whether the WGA's decision to go on strike was a "tactical mistake."

Among all respondents, 57% said no while 35% said yes -- not much different than the divide in November (57%-31%). WGA respondents are holding fast, with only 16% agreeing that going on strike was a tactical miscue.

But among DGA respondents, 42% now agree it was a tactical mistake, compared with 34% in November. Doubts among SAG members are also rising, with 25% agreeing that the strike was a tactical mistake, compared with 15% in November. Half of IATSE members are convinced the work stoppage was a tactical error, inching up to 50% from 47% in the November survey."

A lot of figures and percentages are thrown around as proof that the WGA strike is failing and creating a lot of hostility among other entertainment unions. According to Variety, half of all IATSE members are convinced that the dispute is a tactical error. Well, sorta. You see only 616 Variety subscribers responded and of that 616, 7% were IATSE members. So 3 1/2% of all the respondents who also happen to be IATSE members and subscribers thought that the strike was a "tactical mistake". And how many real people are we talking about? 7% of 616 is 44. So half of that is 3.5% or 22 people. Which means that in an industry consisting of hundreds of thousands of people Variety makes a statement that there is a large percentage of opinion against the strike and represents that "half of all IATSE members" are against it. The opinions of 22 PEOPLE now pass as consensus! Looked at another way, with it's circulation estimated at 31,000, Variety is making that statement based on the opinions of 0.07% of it's readership.

I'm not in the middle of the fight but from the outside, thats worse than sloppy, thats disingenuous. That's Corporate Media posing as a free press.

And Now For Something Entirely Different

Over here on the Right Coast, we've got that whole New Yorker magazine cover thing going on. Things diminish in importance the get further away they get from the Hudson River. So one wonders about the whole WGA strike thing with it’s lack of progress in contract negotiations and the catfight that’s going on with all the unions out there. There’s a continuing turf war going on and somehow they seem to think that this is going to benefit organized labor in some way.

I drove through Los Angeles one day back in the early 70’s in a VW van on my way to San Francisco so I’m not really up to date on the subtleties of labor relations out there. But I have done a little reading about it. For an interesting historical perspective I can point you in the direction of a book called “Class Struggle In Hollywood 1930-1950 Moguls, Mobsters, Stars, Reds and Trade Unionists”.

Another good book is Hollywood's Other Blacklist: Union Struggles in the Studio System . Neither one paints my union in a very flattering light but labor history is rarely as good as it’s painted nor as bad.

One side of why things are the way they are (at least with cartoonists) can be found in a recent post by Mark Evanier in the second “WGA Stuff” entry.

The other side is in a business article in the LA Times . It tells of the relationships and history of the Animation Guild the WGA and the networks.


In keeping with our self-criticism theme, here is a post with a view from the outside of the fray about certain labor leaders in Hollywood. In the Open Left Matt Stoller takes a dim view of the proceedings with When a Labor Union Goes Rotten It’s an unfortunate title since he’s talking about the leadership and not the 115,000 people, who make up the entertainment union.

You know, I feel like taking a shower.