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!) :
"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."
Read more strike coverage on the Huffington Post's writers' strike page.
(Cross-posted from This Modern World and The Talent Show)
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”.
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.
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.
Not until then.
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Kill your TV, and free your mind.
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
Feh.