Commentary: I'm Not Saying That Deadline Is Picking A Side In The WGA/ATA Battle. But....

More than most journalists, I understand how difficult it can be sometimes to keep your personal opinions out of straight hard news stories. You start writing about the facts of the story and the next thing you know you're having to delete four ranting paragraphs about how one side is lying about everything. It's easy for passion to overcome common sense, but most journalists (and their editors) know when they've veered into commentary. And even the most junior of journalists learn when it's time to either cut the editorial out of the text or pull it out and publish it as a straight op-ed piece.

I'm not sure what happened at Deadline today, but this piece by David Robb has the headline of "WGA Members Overwhelmingly Approve New Agency Code." And indeed the first few paragraphs faithfully recount the news that WGA members have approved a new Agency Code of Conduct. But as the piece goes on, it moves towards a vaguely snarky renunciation of the WGA position and the piece ends with these two paragraphs. And no matter what you think about the current state of the WGA/ATA negotiations, you'll likely read this and think "What the actual F#%$?"




Aside from the tone of the paragraphs, the snarkiness of the premise is misguided. The WGA isn't arguing that agents aren't necessary. In fact, Robb's piece manages to completely misstate what the vote over a new Agency Code of Conduct is all about.

The issue isn't whether agents and agencies matter. And it's not about whether agencies can get deals done. Everyone agrees they can and that's the problem. If agencies are the ones who can get a deal done, then there is also an over-sized opportunity for agencies to take advantage of the situation and their leverage by putting their financial needs ahead of their writer clients. Not just with the way they wring packaging fees out of deals but also because getting these packages done ends up being more important to the agency than the specifics of who is part of the deal. Those anonymous horror stories from writers that Robb writes about don't include the numerous of specific complaints that have surfaced from individual WGA members in recent weeks. Robb frames the complaints as coming from a rabble of writers who won't give their names & don't understand the real world. And that is nowhere near the reality of the situation.

Sidenote: I won't even get into the irony of someone writing for Deadline dismissing "anonymous horror stories" when it has published two anonymous letters from people claiming to be WGA members who are unhappy with the union's negotiating stance.

Deadline has a reputation among many writers as being pro-agency in this battle. I don't know if that's the case - although I've seen some pieces that certainly seem lop-sided. But this piece is part news and part commentary and the end result is an article that doesn't please anyone.

And one last thing: who has Robb been talking to that still makes deals "on a napkin at the Polo Lounge?" And wouldn't the agent have set the business meeting to begin with? So why would anyone even ask who the agent is? 

My head hurts...