A Comedy Writer on Strike

(The following post was contributed by Steve Young, a television writer for Late Night with David Letterman, and the father of star Writopia Lab writer, Rebecca Shubert. He also wrote The Simpsons episode "Hurricane Neddy" and won an Annie Award in 2000 for his screenplay that was produced by Matt Groening, Drew Barrymore and Fox Family Films. He has been generous enough to share his thoughts with us on the life of the TV comedy writer--and on the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike.)

Hello, Writopia Community!

I’m honored to have the chance to offer my observations on being a professional comedy writer. Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have time to write this, because I’d be working 12 hours a day writing funny stuff for television. But since early November I’ve found myself with a lot more time. I’m a member of the Writers Guild of America, and I’m on strike.

I’ve been a writer for “Late Show With David Letterman” (and before that, “Late Night With David Letterman”) since 1990. It’s a peculiar kind of writing. The assignments constantly change as new needs and emergencies arise. Within an average hour, I might switch from writing jokes for the Top Ten List to coming up with new ideas for something to do outside with a camera to writing a script for some live bit on the show to writing phony “Fun Facts” to writing a script for something to shoot with Dave after the show…plus I’ll be running to the edit room to oversee the production of a fake commercial or meeting with Dave to refine the monologue. It’s a lot of pressure, and I don’t have the luxury of waiting for inspiration to hit. When something’s needed, my mind has to be able to start churning out material right away.

Most of what we writers come up with doesn’t make it onto the show. Thousands of jokes and ideas get tossed aside each week. That can be depressing, but we get used to it. Despite the shockingly high rejection rate, there’s practically nobody else on the planet who can do this particular job the way it needs to be done. If we’re not funny or productive enough, we can be let go every 13 weeks, but for those who can handle the job, it can be fun, exhausting--and lucrative.

Part of the reason we’re paid well is the Writers Guild of America. TV and movie writers who work on Guild-covered projects get benefits and protections we wouldn’t have otherwise, like a pension and health insurance, minimum pay per week or per script, and residuals. In case you’re not familiar with residuals, they’re payments we receive when a show or movie is re-run or sold on DVD. Residuals are the main reason we’re on strike. The big companies are always looking for ways to pay us less, and now, with the rise of the internet, they think they’ve found it.

You can buy shows and movies on iTunes or watch episodes on a network’s website. We’re not getting paid when this happens. The big companies are making boatloads of money (and boasting about it to their shareholders), but then they turn around and tell us it’s too soon to see if the internet will be profitable. Our position is, simply, if you make money from our work, we should make money too. This isn’t an attempt to grab more cash. We’re just trying to replace the residuals we’re losing as the business changes and everything switches to the internet.

Years ago, we took a bad deal on DVD’s—writers get about 4 cents from every DVD sold—because we trusted the companies when they said they’d do a new deal if DVD’s turned out to be profitable. Well, guess what. DVD’s ended up being a goldmine, but somehow, the companies never got around to revisiting the bad deal. We won’t get fooled again.

The internet isn’t the only issue in this strike. We’re still trying to fix that bad DVD deal, and we’re working to get other kinds of shows covered by the Guild. We want to unionize more animation writers. And we’re fighting to get jurisdiction over reality shows, which right now are the television equivalent of sweatshops. We need to move ahead on a lot of things, but the big media companies are hoping to push us further back.


It’s true that some Writers Guild members make good money. However, 48% of WGA members don’t make the $31,000 a year required to earn health insurance coverage. At any given time, half the Guild membership isn’t employed. Residuals enable writers to survive in the months or even years between jobs. I’ve been very lucky in having a long-term steady job, but I know that may not always be the case. I’m on strike to fight for other writers, present and future, as well for as my own future.

Now instead of writing jokes about Britney Spears, President Bush, or the New York Jets, I’m marching on a picket line several days a week. Even though it’s often cold and grim, I’ve enjoyed catching up with old friends and meeting new ones. Despite the socializing and free coffee and donuts, it’s not really a party. People are getting hurt by this strike. But we all agree it’s a fight we have to continue and win if being a TV/movie/internet writer is to be a decent profession in the decades ahead.

What’s that? You’re saying “He doesn’t seem very funny for a comedy writer”? Yeah, sorry, I wanted to make sure I got all the serious stuff covered. After all, maybe someday these issues will affect you. But rest assured, I’m still hilarious. Check out www.lateshowwritersonstrike.com and see how we’re keeping our comedy muscles toned with strike-related humor. Also, visit www.wgaeast.org for more information about the strike and the issues involved. And finally, visit www.clearfour.com/condiment/ if you’d like to view an online museum of condiment packets.

Feel free to ask any questions about comedy writing or the strike.

-Steve Young Read more!

Wall Street Journal Op-Ed

Monday: the Wall Street Journal emailed me, letting me know that they accepted an op-ed I wrote for publication. Tuesday: an editor called me to let me know it would run Wednesday (wow, that was fast). Wednesday: as the op-ed hit the stands, I was suddenly hit with dozens of details and thoughts I wish I had included... So I will post some of those thoughts tomorrow. For now, here is the piece that ran on Wednesday.

In Praise of 'Thought Competition'

By REBECCA WALLACE-SEGALL
November 28, 2007; Page A23

Monday: After a long day at his New York City private school, Ben, 16, heads to my creative writing lab to work on his heartfelt memoir about his parents' bitter divorce. Tuesday: Alison, 15, rushes from her elite private school in the Bronx to work on her short screenplay about a gifted, mean and eccentric boy. Lily, 13, pops in whenever she can to polish her hilarious short story narrated by an insomniac owl.

Ben, Alison and Lily, along with another few dozen who attend my afterschool writing program, also attend top-notch New York private schools that cost upwards of $25,000 a year. So why, one might wonder, do these kids need an extracurricular creative writing coach? The answer is simple, though twisted: Their schools -- while touting well-known athletic teams -- are offshoots of the "progressive education" movement and uphold a categorical belief that "thought competition" is treacherous.

Administrators of these schools will not support their students in literary, science or math competitions, including the most prestigious creative writing event in the country: the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards. So we at Writopia Lab help these kids to join the 10,000 young literati from across the country who are hurrying to meet the event's January deadline, as well as deadlines for other competitions.

For decades now, psychology and pedagogy researchers have been debating the impact of competition on young people's self-esteem, with those wary of thought competition taking the lead. Most New York parents of public or private school students have felt the awkward reverberations of this trend -- which avoids naming winners -- when Johnny takes home a certificate for "participation" in the school's science fair. (Do you hang that one up on the wall?)

But some, and ironically those who attend some of the most desirable schools in the region, feel the reverberations in deeper, more painful ways. "Two years after my son left a school that prohibited him from entering a national math competition," says one mother, "he still writes angry essays about why the jocks in his former school were allowed to compete throughout the city while he wasn't allowed to win the same honors for his gifts." Sam, her son, felt uncool in the eyes of his peers, and undervalued (and sometimes even resented) by the administration.

"We don't want kids to compete individually, put themselves in vulnerable positions as individuals," explains a leading administrator. "They can compete within teams," explains another. "So the focus is on community building rather than on personal value."

But what about Sam's sense of personal value? Aren't human beings fabulously varied in their gifts and sensibilities? Excellent teamwork can be important, but is it the only admirable achievement? Should any school in the United States prevent broader acknowledgment of a young, creative mathematician?

Mel Levine, a professor at the University of North Carolina and one of the foremost authorities in the country on how children learn, believes the impact of the collaborative education movement has been devastating to an entire generation. When students are rewarded for participation rather than achievement, Dr. Levine suggests, they don't have a strong sense of what they are good at and what they're not. Thus older members of Generation Y might be in for quite a shock when they show up for work at their first jobs. "They expect to be immediate heroes and heroines. They expect a lot of feedback on a daily basis. They expect grade inflation, they expect to be told what a wonderful job they're doing," says Dr. Levine.

What is most surprising about the brand of educational progressivism that denies creative and innovative teens the right to compete for public acknowledgment is the seeming lack of interest in distinguishing between positive or negative competitions. Positive competitions award a good number of entries with a range of awards, and, in some cases, send constructive comments back with the manuscripts. Negative competitions, on the other hand, may charge high fees to enter or award only the top three entries.

Last January, 28 of my students rigorously workshopped, edited and entered 45 submissions to the Scholastic event, and 28 pieces won recognition on the regional level and another five on the national level. In April, 24 of these students went to New York University to have honors bestowed upon them by famous writers, and another five went to Carnegie Hall to receive national awards.

Still, students would quietly ask me over the following year why one of their pieces was or wasn't recognized. We would compare how much time they put into one piece over another, the risks they took in one, the original elements of another, and how new a genre was to them. But most importantly, the conversation turned to a defining aspect of an artist's world: the reign of arbitrary judgment. My students know that they don't each share the same response to their peers' work, and they proudly tout individually refined sensibilities. So the real questions they should be asking themselves are: Did they try their best? Have they learned in the process? Are they excited to try again?

The goal of positive competitions is to help young people identify their strengths, overcome their limitations to the best of their ability, and process their disappointments. Luckily, there is an extraordinary range of projects -- both collaborative and competitive -- that inspire kids to produce their best work, bond with their peers and prepare fully for adulthood.

Ms. Wallace-Segall is a New York-based writer. Read more!

Schools: Celebrate Teen Writers

By Rebecca Wallace-Segall
(Photos: Jeff Segall)

The National Endowment for the Arts reported today a downward trend in fiction, poetry, and drama consumption by Americans--with the youngest group, ages 18-25, hit the hardest.

According to the study, the ubiquity of electronic media has made the difference. Certainly obsessive IMing and Facebook surfing takes us away from our books, but, as educators, we actually have control over the more perilous culprit: the fact that most school administrators don't do much to reinforce the notion that literature should take center stage at school.

Here's a way your school can help young people realize the pleasure and value of reading: fund a creative writing program that can support qualified creative writing teachers; celebrate your young creative writers as proudly as you celebrate athletes, actors, and general academics; plan readings during the school year held within the school's auditorium that place writers on stage under the spotlight.

Schools can play an active role undoing the marginalization of literature and literates in their schools. But will they?

The photos posted (above) were taken at Barnes & Noble during the Q & A session after each tween or teen writer read their own original short story, poem, or memoir, or helped read a play written by a workshop participant.

~~Rebecca WS


Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/19/arts/19nea.html Read more!