...whoever it is who tells him things told him that the strike was over.

And for some reason, my TiVo refuses to accept a season pass for him.

I've heard quite a few on why they are being so stubborn.

 

1. Nick Counter, their cheif negotiator, is planning to retire and wants to go out feeling like the legendary pitbull for Big Media who broke the union.

2. Rupert Murdoch and the other moguls hate unions and want to see us busted - they beleive if they keep us striking long enough, mess with our emotions, try to turn other industry unions against us - eventually we'll bleed out and cave. Life for them would be so much easier in the long run if they did not demonstrate that unions had any power in negotiating with them - that just makes other people want to stand up to them, too.

3. A friend of mine who works at a studio said that her CEO in a business meeting said, "I'm willling to lose millions now in order to make billions in the future." Meaning, they know what the money from the internet looks like, and they just don't want to share it. 

Marty hit it on the head. A little history: THEY'VE ALWAYS WON. So they're really loath to give anything up this time around. They think we'll cave. They're wrong.

I've spent weeks now trying to get inside their heads, and just can't do it. ANother possibility: they're trusting their negotiator too much. I saw some of this firsthand when we Daily Show writers organized and negotiated our contract last year. Try to imaging the AMPTP -- a group of six type-A CEO's. They can't actually agree on very much, right? Maybe it's easier to just punt it to Nick Counter, their hatchet man at the table. And Counter's job isn't to build a bridge to the utopian future. It's to kick ass and take names. It's always worked before.

My guess: it's fear.  Instead of seeing a negotiation as a process toward a win-win outcome, the studios see this as a zero-sum game in which anything they give up will hurt them.  Instead of wanting to enter the brave new digital world with writers as their creative partners, they're afraid that the smallest concession will be the first note of their death-knell.  What's ironic is how much better the studios would do in the long run if they did right by the writers right now.

...if we win, it would mean you're not just stealing from them. You'd be stealing from us, too.

The fan support not only makes us feel less alone, it also has put pressure on the AMPTP to get back to the table.  Fans are great organizers, and the internet only helps their facilitation.  They've sent pencils, they're organizing letter writing campaigns, boycotts, auctions, contests, and more.  They've been some of our best friends in this battle.

 

 

...we're INCREDIBLY gratified to be getting all the support from viewers. It's a risky thing to go on strike, and the fans are helping make it a lot less lonely than it would otherwise be. Please keep it up! And who knows - maybe media CEO's want to be liked after all, and their continued place in the public doghouse will eventually spur them to make a deal. As for big media "bending," the offer on Thursday, which I wrote about below, was the first offer to pay us ANYTHING for streaming reruns. So, while it's far from adequate, at least it's progress.

Thanks for your support!

So we’re still striking.

 

And maybe you should until we figure out whether or not channeled electricity is being conducted in a manner we can all agree is healthy for our planet.

A question for you is do you know anything about this "shifting of the poles" or "magnetic storm" coming up?

boils down to the issue

How much of this is really going to matter if the murmur of impending environmental change worldwide proves to be in fact so deadly a situation that anyone left still writing and/or creating programs for viewers will be ruefully comparable to the steadfast people continuing their practise amidst a driving rain of arrows as can seen in a memorable part of a movie called Hero?

Hi Jason-

Given the importance of the Internet as a future distribution channel for programming, it seems like there would be natural support from the writers for Net Neutrality. As bad as dealing with these giant media companies is, it would be worse to have them dictate what gets viewed online. What''s your position on Net Neutrality?

 

Jen

I understand that corporations most affected by the strike are CBS Corp, Disney and General Electric. These are the same media giants that we square off against in the media reform movement -- on issues such as broadcaster consolidation (which saps newsrooms of journalists) and vertical integration (which has screwed writers out of residuals).

Media consolidation is bad for labor -- it's also bad for democracy. And it's become clear to me that these companies are negotiating on bad faith.

We're ready to work with writers to make this strike a massive political and financial liability for large media corporations. The challenge is finding a unified message around which we can organize larger public opposition. How can we work together to take this issue to the next level?

Tim Karr is Free Press campaign director

Hi Jason, first off, I love your show, I miss it very much, and can't wait for it to get back on the air. That said, I support you writers 100%, and I feel slightly ashamed for all the times I watched your show on Motherlode. I didn't realize you guys weren't getting paid for that. You definitely deserve to be paid for your work. My question though is Brian Williams wrote in a blog that he missed Jon Stewart, but I haven't heard him talk about the strike at all on the nightly news. If journalism is supposed to be about informing the public of current issues facing the nation (and the world), how come Mr. Williams and other journalists-Even the entertainment reporters (although I did like their coverage of Neil Diamond's song "Sweet Caroline") have been mostly silent on this issue?

Sarah Armour-Jones:

There is a Dickensian feel to this situation, with writers getting meager shares of the pot, while Big Media gets fatter each day.

I'm wondering how you feel the strike is being covered by the media, and what you're hearing from "the people". Do you think the public understands that you're holding out your proverbial soup bowl for a little more gruel?

If not, what would your message or slogan be?

We're with you!

What can we -- average citizens and Entertainment Weekly readers -- do to help support the strike?

what you think we can do to ensure that in the future more diversified voices come to the surface.

 

Reverse engingeering.

 

Deconstruction is in fact much closer to the original meaning of the word 'analysis' itself, which etymologically means "to undo" — a virtual synonym for "to de-construct." ... If anything is destroyed in a deconstructive reading, it is not the text, but the claim to unequivocal domination of one mode of signifying over another. A deconstructive reading is a reading which analyzes the specificity of a text's critical difference from itself.

I don't know.

Nor I. Do you find television to be harmless or a mistake?

 

Kate -

Seems like those in charge are primarily concerned with t&a and the bottom line -- not producing the kind of entertainment that might appeal to more diverse audiences. What is like to be a female writer in an industry where mostly male corporate suits are dictating all content -- even the programming that is supposedly geared towards women?

 

Jen

In what other ways have you seen media consolidation affect your work?