More conglom-friendly spin
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Variety has a lot of decent news on most days, but they've written some real junk reporting on the strike over the past two months and apparently, they aren't alone when it comes to reprinting or I suppose making up some spin of their own.
I'm referring to a piece going out on the wire from Hollywood Reporter that was doing pretty well up until the fourth paragraph when out of the blue came a nugget straight from the AMPTP's talking point memo.
I'm not kidding, look at this garbage:
The situation still could implode if the AMPTP fails to assure DGA brass that the union will be rewarded for entering early contract talks. The DGA is under contract through June 30, but the guild has a history of negotiating new contracts about six months early and has signaled an interest in commencing formal talks soon.
The AMPTP would love for the DGA to do just that, if only to show that at least one Hollywood labor organization is willing to engage with the studio organization.
HR frames this as a poor, frustrated AMPTP that has sat respectfully at the table but just can't get a fair shake from those horrible writers that are more interested in prolonging a strike that is costing many of them their homes and careers, rather than sit down and just "talk things out."
That narritive should be a familiar one since it's what's been coming out of the AMPTP PR office every day since before the strike even began. The reality is that there is at "at least one Hollywood labor org willing to engage with the studio", and it's called the Writers Guild of America, who has a standing invitation for the AMPTP to return to the table.
You see it wasn't a guild disinterested in bargaining that held things up, it was the AMPTP by way of that organization walking away from the negotiations twice.
At this point it's complete indisputable who is responsible for the complete lack of progress today. It doesn't matter who was mean at first, who lied the most, or who is on the side of right here.
The AMPTP walked away from the table -- twice -- and refuses to return. Who is it that isn't interested in sitting down and talking, then?
The rest of the report -- in fact the report in its entirety -- contains no new information whatsoever, yet the author took the opportunity to repeat information that's already out there to sneak in some spin that favors only the billion dollar conglomerates that have thus far acted like adolescents holding their breath after not getting exactly what they wanted.
With the by-line removed, there's little to distinguish this "report" from statements made directly by AMPTP negotiator Nick Counter and should be wholly discarded as old information, mixed with industry spin that is flatly contradicted by the physical record of this years talks.
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