WGA Strike : Lying With Numbers

Atrios catches some anti-WGA strike bias on CNBC, a network that prides itself in catering to "business executives and financial professionals that have significant purchasing power". The chyron reads :

WHAT ARE THEY FIGHTING FOR?

4,434 Hollywood guild writers worked full-time last year.

Average salary: $204,000

Many earned $1 million or more

Well, to answer CNBC's question, they aren't fighting for "significant purchasing power". They're fighting for the financial security that would allow their members to remain in the middle class.

Middle class? Two hundred grand sounds like a good deal, but remember that's the average salary. This number was chosen specifically because CNBC and the studios on whose behalf they're arguing want you to believe that most writers are spoiled brats whining about their six-figure incomes. But in a case like this in which a deliberately-vague "many" WGA members earn over $1 million, the "average" income is misleading. A much more important measurement of writers income is the median.

For a good illustration of the difference between "average" and "median" incomes, let me refer you to this graph from the classic book "How to Lie With Statistics" (used without permission. go buy it now!) :

If you add up all of the salaries and divide it by the number of employees, you come up with an "average" that is a poor indicator of an ordinary worker's income. After all, Mr. Moneybags at the top brings home more than twenty times what the dozen peons at the bottom of the graph make. And this "average" income is only earned by one person, who earns more than 20 of the 24 employees on the chart. While the "average" in this case is mathematically correct, it doesn't represent the typical income. Or to use an oft-cited example, if Bill Gates walked into a homeless shelter, the "average" income would skyrocket, but it wouldn't change the fact that everyone else is poor.

Now let's go back to the WGA strike. Thanks to our friends at CNBC, we know that the "average" WGA member makes $200K, but what's the median income? According to an LA Times op-ed written by a WGA board member :

"The median income of screen and television writers from their guild-covered employment is $5,000 a year, in part because almost half our members don't work in any given year."

Five. Thousand. Dollars. Now keep that figure in mind when you see these CEOs gush about how much money they'll be making :



CNBC wants to know "What are they fighting for?". Well, considering that writers aren't even being paid for this "golden era", the WGA is fighting to keep their five thousand dollars from being taken away in the future. Sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Read more strike coverage on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.

(Cross-posted from This Modern World and The Talent Show)

Comments

[RaisingAwareness]

Brilliant!

[Pneumaticus]

For those who seem confused about the life of the mind in Hollywood, and the role of the screenwriter, Barton Fink can fill you in.

[ThreeCentsWorth]

Yes, I watched that in disbelief, too. Who was "expert" Dennis? He knew nothing about the business, and his "stats" were ridiculous. The CNBC reporter kept trying to correct him, but the anchors seemed to enjoy the dispute. Where's Jerry Cobb? He knew the business.

[research]

The average WRITERS wage is 5000

The average writers WAGE is 200,000.

How much does the average writers make? 5000.

Versus, of course, the owners view,

What is the average cost of writers? 200,000.

All cleverly disguised in “the average writers wage is”.

[Libsrule]

This reminds me of the crapola the White House was pushing with the fucking bullshit lie about the AVERAGE INCOME TAX REFUND due because of Lord Bush's tax refunds was ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS.

BUT as with the lying with statistics show, the real average was closer to two hundred dollars and a lot of people got a great deal less, while millionaires got upwards of 25 thousand dollars back.

One guy famously interviewed by one of the cable network news showed his TWENTY SEVEN dollar refund.

If a product makes money irrespective of where and when it is sold then the person who wrote it should get his fair share.

[Blackspeare]

This whole business is a fiasco built on archaic copyright and licensing laws that have created a source of never ending income through the concept of residuals. The original intent of copyrights was to protect intellectual property from plagiarism when it took considerable time to create such works and not just a week or two!

In light of today’s information and communication technology, writers and composers can turn out works in days and for this should they receive a lifetime of residuals? The prime example of this distortion is Merv Griffin, who in about 10 minutes, composed the theme song for the game show, “Jeopardy.” Every time that theme is played he received a royalty. Even he couldn’t keep a straight face when he related, during an interview, that 10 minutes of work resulted in several million dollars of income over the years. Another good example is Jerry Seinfeld and he makes Griffin look like a poor boy! No doubt he worked hard for 9 or 10 years, but should that entitle him to a lifetime of income for doing nothing. He did get paid a pretty good salary during the show-----ain’t that enough?

What’s wrong with this picture?! I may be old fashion, but I believe you get paid when you produce not stay at home.

[LightningJoe]

When you can convince me that any television besides PBS and CSPAN have any (and I mean ANY) cultural value, I'll start to get exercised about compensation to writers who write for it.

Not until then.

---------
Kill your TV, and free your mind.

[SunSinger]

Even if the tricky statistics were true, that wouldn't justify cheating the writers out of their "new media" residuals.

AMPTP had the misleading version of the statistics ready to trot out before the strike began. They make for wonderfully misleading headlines and full-page ads that will find more and more willing believers as soon as "Desperate Housewives" and "Grey's Anatomy" go into reruns and the viewers are stuck with lives that are no longer worth living.

Malcolm Campbell

[ReelBusy]

It's time to start a national DVD buying boycott to support the WGA strike and make the media companies negotiate a fair deal. Boycott Studio DVD's now!

[JudyGee]

There is no argument that relates to how much money writers earn,(Ronald Reagan's rallying cry was the same crap when he broke the union and fired the air controllers). The CNBC crowd is trying to reframe it that same way. It's a wholly red herring issue. The real issue, is about what kind of a society we have, and what sort we want badly enough to fight for it. Fairness, in general, and fair compensation in particular has taken an awful beating, and was brain dead until this strike. At least, the strike presents issues that all labor is forced to confront and supplies the real elephant. The obscene greed and arrogance of the corporatists with their slave labor ethos, have no regard for human life, something that is remarkably un-american. Stockholders, unless they hold majority shares, are just manipulated with sucker-bait. The ponzi stock market is proof enough of that. Someone at CNBC is always blabbing about and fawning over some crook, like the Citigroup guy who drove it into the ground with billions in debts, and received a hundred million dollars just to leave. It is unconscionable that such as these should talk about anyone's earnings as a good reason for stealing their work.
Feh.

[slgalt]

That high number was provided by the corporations that own all the media. It is a total lie, nothing to do with stats.