How Media Bias Twists Public Perception of the Writers’ Strike

by | May 22, 2023 | News

Outside of the corporate offices and backlots of Netflix, Disney, NBC, Universal, and Warner Brothers, masses of protestors stand with signs that range from serious to hilarious, all with the same message: writers need to be fairly paid for their work.

Corporate media continues to twist public perception of the strike as members of the Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) enter their fourth week of acting against the strenuous conditions imposed upon them by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). The strike is in response to the stagnant wages and the dismantling of stable pay structures within the industry, among many other issues.

Writing for the New Yorker, Michael Schulman explained the WGA’s grievances:

“Streamers are ordering shorter seasons, and the residuals model that used to give network writers a reliable income is out the window. The ladder from junior writer to showrunner has become murkier, with some people repeating steps like repeating grades, and others being flung to the top without the requisite experience, in order to meet demand for new content. Studios are cutting writing budgets to the bone by hiring fewer people for shorter time periods, often without paying for lower-level writers to be on set during production, which makes it all but impossible to learn the skills necessary to run a show.”

In short, the same amount of television is still being produced, but the time writers are being given and subsequently being paid to work on these shows has been cut severely, resulting in overworked, underpaid people.

Famous actors Bob Odenkirk and Mandy Patinkin show their solidarity with the WGA. (Mandy Patinkin via Twitter)

With the problem extending further than TV, it has become clear that writers of your favorite entertainment media can barely afford to make ends meet.

Many working writers living in Los Angeles are not living the imagined lifestyle of the “Hollywood Elite.” The strike has elicited a flood of writers sharing their stories of financial struggle — something that has become more common among those working in the film industry, as the average writer’s pay has fallen dramatically in the past decade.

“I’m currently walking two dogs for $30 per day on a route that takes me through Hollywood and past a billboard for the hit comedy I most recently wrote on,” wrote Jeanie Bergen, executive story editor on the hit TV show “Dave.”

The major Hollywood trades such as Variety, Deadline, and The Hollywood Reporter — all corporate-owned news outlets — have received a barrage of criticism from writers due to their biased headlines and reporting, which place blame on the writers and the WGA for the strike and halted productions. This is not surprising, as the parent companies of these highly popular news outlets have stakes in the production companies that are affected by the strike.

Strikers encourage passersby to honk ti disrupt film shoots and corporate meetings. (Travis Helwig via Twitter)

Accurate framing is crucial to dispel the  perception of the striking writers as elites demanding more money for less work, and to illustrate that these writers aren’t suffering at the hands of supposedly unjust union leaders.

The writers’ strike happening right now matters in a larger context. Members of the WGA are fighting for their rights as unionized workers. They are fighting for issues that affect the majority of working Americans, such as the right to a living wage.

As more and more union efforts across the United States are thwarted by the rich and powerful, it is vital for American citizen to the see the power that comes from organizing. Labor action in one industry means labor action is possible in every industry.

On the writers’ strike, Richard D. Wolff, founder of Democracy at Work, commented, “When unions band together and with their allies across society, political power from below becomes real.”

 

 

Header Image via David McNew—Getty Images

 

More from The Edge

The New Long COVID is College Without Classes

I was punched in the gut. It hurt. I thought this would be the seminar session to bring all the theories and histories of documentary across analog and digital together with a big political and epistemological impact. But I should have summoned my semiotic training to...

Warhol, Art, and Capitalism Before the Supreme Court

The Andy Warhol Foundation has lost its suit against photographer Lynn Goldsmith. The Supreme Court’s May 18, 2023, ruling positioned the decision as a defense of lesser known artists against famous ones. The majority argued that Fair Use was not applicable when...

Motherhood, Technology, and Natalia Almada’s “Users”

Natalia Almada’s documentary essay film “Users” (2021) questions a mother’s deep ambivalence about technology. But the film’s aesthetics makes clear that she has already chosen technology. The film is the binational Mexican American director’s first shot in the United...

Guilty of Sexual Abuse (But Not Rape?)

On Contemptuous Men and the Women who Fight Back A short note about the subtitle before I begin: it is interesting how these gender terms hold sometimes in all their simplicity and binary force. Other than the title, when I use the term woman/en it is inclusive of...

The Drifting Smoke of the Burned-Over District

South Butler, New York, is a forgotten byway in American history. Its moment of notoriety came and went. Now it is just a crossroad hamlet struggling to matter like so many other such places in rural America. But once it did matter. In the decades before the Civil...

Capturing the Latino Vote

The 2024 election season has begun. Candidates identify political and policy priorities. Voters constantly wonder where on the political spectrum the country will land. At the same time, a political messaging battle about voter turnout and possible voter suppression...

Further Stirring the Ashes of the Burned-Over District

Because a number of my maternal ancestors settled in South Butler, New York, and surrounding communities in the first decades of the 19th century, I have mused on any possible connections between my family and the social ferment bubbling around them. In the course of...