Factually! with Adam Conover - Why Writers Are On Strike with David A. Goodman and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

For the first time in over 15 years, the Writers Guild of America is on strike. Your favorite shows and movies are at risk, but so is the livelihood of thousands of writers, and the future of writing as a viable career. This week, Adam is joined by fellow writers and WGA negotiating committee members Danielle Sanchez-Witzel and David A. Goodman to discuss how we got here, what's at stake, and what needs to happen to secure a sustainable life for writers everywhere.https://www.patreon.com/adamconoverhttps://www.adamconover.net/tourdates/https://entertainmentcommunity.org/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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businesses in Japan. Because Bokksu works with 200-plus small makers to get their snacks delivered straight to also rest assured that you have helped to support small family-run businesses in Japan because Bokksu works with 200 plus small makers to get their snacks delivered straight to your door. So if all of that sounds good, if you want a big box of delicious snacks like this for yourself, use the code FACTUALLY for $15 off your first order at Bokksu.com. That's code FACTUALLY for $15 off your first order on Boxu.com. Hello and welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thank you so much for joining me on the show. I'm here in my brand new studio to share a little bit of a different episode with you. See,

normally I have an expert on this show to teach us all things that blow our minds, but this week I'm talking about something very personal. See, you might've read in the news that my union, the Writers Guild of America, is on strike. That's because over the last decade, writing for television, movies, and streaming has become increasingly unsustainable as a career. The median writer-producer in TV now makes 23% less than we did a decade ago, even though the companies are making more money than ever, and show budgets have increased by 50% over that same period. In fact, even though companies like Netflix are making record profits, they are simultaneously waging an unprecedented war on our compensation and on our workplace protections. They're trying to eliminate the writer's room and turn us into freelancers. They're trying to force

screenwriters to do endless rewrites for free, and they're trying to turn late-night comedy writing from a stable career into a one-day-a-week side hustle. Now, they're a tough adversary. We've got some of the wealthiest and most powerful companies in the world fighting against us, trying to eliminate our jobs. But you know what we have to fight back? A union. Together, the 12,000 writers of the Writers Guild of America have declared that enough is enough, and we have gone on strike until the companies address these issues and put basic protections in place that will allow us to continue to build a career and a life in this industry. We have put down our pencils and picked up our picket signs in order to remind these companies

that without us, they don't have a product to sell. And in the weeks since, we have shown that we have a lot of power. Shows like Stranger Things and Severance have shut down production entirely. The MTV Movie Awards canceled their live show. And every company in Hollywood has stopped receiving the scripts that they need to shoot the shows and movies

that generate all that massive profit for them to begin with. But what are the real stakes of this battle? How is it going to affect your favorite shows? How do we get to this point? And how might the strike end? Well, to answer those questions, we have two amazing guests on the show today. Their names are David Goodman and Danielle Sanchez-Witzel. David Goodman is a former president of the Writers Guild of America West, and he currently co-chairs our negotiating committee. Danielle Sanchez-Witzel also serves on that committee. She's written for many incredible shows, such as My Name is Earl.

David's written for Family Guy and many others. And by the way, I also serve on the negotiating committee and I'm on the board of the Writers Guild of America West. So between the three of us, you got three people who've been in the negotiating room who know exactly what this strike is all about. So without further ado, let's get to my conversation with David Goodman and Danielle Sanchez-Whitzel. David and Danielle, thank you so much for being here. It's great to be here, Adam. Yeah, thanks for having us. We're all wearing matching t-shirts. We have them. Were you guys on the picket line this morning? Yes.

Yes, I was at Netflix this morning. Great energy, amazing vibes. Highly recommend. It's a party there in front of that building every day. I was at Disney. It was also an amazing turnout and great energy there as well. Well, let's start by asking you guys a question that my parents keep asking me. Why the hell are we on strike? What is going on? Well, it's nice that you still have parents. I'm so sorry for your loss, David.

Both of mine are gone. We're starting on a note. Great. I was bringing your parents into it, bragging about having parents. I, why are we on strike? We're on strike because the Writers Guild of America every three years negotiates its contract. And we have a very hardworking and talented staff and leadership that looks at the issues that are facing writers.

And we did a lot of research and a lot of talking to our members. And writers not only are having trouble earning a living, but we're seeing a future where it will be even harder for writers to earn a living. And these were things that we needed to address in our contract negotiation. And in sitting down with the AMPTP, the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers who negotiate for all the companies, we made demands and they refused to talk about many of our most important demands. They said, we're not going to talk about this stuff. And so this union had to exercise its power and go on strike. Yeah.

Danielle, you're a showrunner, correct? Yeah, I am. And what changes have you seen over the last 10 years that have brought us to this point? Well, streaming is the big thing, right? And I think it's why the energy is so great at the Netflix picket, because I think a lot of us know that that's where it started. I just, everyone has had a bad meeting in that building. There's a lot of feelings about, yeah, that building. You know, I just made a show for Netflix. And so I've been making television for 20 years, 19 of those years, I was making

broadcast TV. So what is what the kids call linear TV now, I think, you know, and, you know, we, for decades, there was a model that worked making TV that way. And that that model had to do with having writing staffs work through all three phases of production, pre production, production, and post production for your parents, so they can understand, you know, and, you know, there were there were whole staffs that wrote the whole time. And I think as a business, we never had to justify that or explain that to anyone or talk to anyone about that. And so now the town is forced to talk about it.

And I think it's a big piece. It's not the only piece. But streaming is obviously, I think, the headline of what changed the business in the last 10 years. And so what the streaming model came in and did, what Netflix came in and did, I think, the headline of what changed the business in the last 10 years. And so what the streaming model came in and did, what Netflix came in and did, was say, I think we only need writers for a third of that time. And I think we can compress that third, you know, as little as possible. So basically, they came along and decided to try to only hire writers for pre-production.

So that's the time when we're coming up with the stories and we're creating the worlds and the characters and the arcs, you know, but the thought was, why don't you do all of that and write all of the scripts since we're going to make less episodes, you know? So why don't you just do it all in a finite number of weeks? And then that whole writing staff will let go and we'll keep one person. We'll keep a showrunner. If you're lucky, maybe you get a buddy. But why don't you go do the other two thirds of the television business that used to be done by staffs of 10 to 12 people. And you do all the writing that's left to do and you do all the production and that'll work great for us because

we'll pay less people, less money for a shorter amount of time. And it's breaking the television business. That model is actually breaking the business. And so that, you know, it's a big reason we're here and we can talk about, obviously, all the ways it's breaking the business. Yeah, it's kind of like there's all these norms that were in place in the television business and in film, by the way, that protected writers and that like this is how we made TV and movies for years, like having a writer's room. And then these companies have just decided, actually,

what if we didn't do that as a way to pay us less? It's sort of like if, you know, the like airline pilots, you know, if it didn't, I don't know what's in their contract, but what if their contract didn't say there has to be two pilots and three

flight attendants? What if they only had to fly a third of the time for a third of the flight? That would be a terrible model. Yeah. And what if the companies were like how about it's just one guy yeah in the plane or he's also has to do the drinks but but you don't ever get to land the plane like that's that's the thing that you know we're you know we don't need pilots to land the plane everybody doesn't have to learn how to land the plane yeah

that's that is i think well and that's one of the problems because it used to be that writers would go to set because writing would happen during production. And then writers would learn how to become showrunners because they'd go and they'd see, oh, wait, if I write, if I write X, then Y is going to happen. You know, the example I always use when I'm talking about this is the very first time I was writing for TV. I went from writing for a college humor, a website to show running my own show. a college humor, a website to show running my own show. And on my first season, I wrote a scene where someone jumps into a pool of water and the line producer had to sit me down and be like, you can't, we can't shoot that. And I, and I, and I was like, why? That doesn't seem hard. Why can't someone jump in a pool of water? And he said, well, because then we have to dry the wardrobe out between every take, or we have to have five sets of wardrobe and then we have to redo their hair and makeup. It would take all day, just just a simple thing so just have them jump in off camera and no one you don't know that until you go to set and you see it have to be done what's more difficult and what isn't and so they're like

breaking these sort of like norms that have made tv uh supportable and sustainable and good and a good business for years and none of those norms are in our contract. And now we're trying to go in and like put them back in and say, you have to, you have to have a writer's room. You have to like pay writers through posts, stuff like that. Right.

And we understand that we can't go back in time, that the streaming model is the model that we're all in. Yeah. But we also understand that the, the, some of these norms that we're trying to essentially legislate into our contract, as you said, led to profitable TV and movies. Like the companies have benefited from this ongoing school that has happened. They've all been made rich by our way. And so, as Daniel said, like they're breaking the business because not just in terms in the short term, but in the long term.

And, you know, we've heard from execs across the board that they're not happy with the way some of their shows are run. And that's a function of the fact that showrunners aren't getting the experience they need from other writers to learn how to do it well. And so this is an ongoing problem that we're trying to fix in this negotiation. What do you think, beyond streaming, has changed in the business to zoom out a little bit? Because obviously streaming has come in, but it seems as though, you know, look, we we've had a union for 90 years. The guild has just celebrated his 90th birthday. And television has been around since the forties. Right.

And it was an extremely profitable business where we had all of these norms and these systems, what is causing them business wise to want to destroy all this, to lay people off or underpay talent when the whole business was founded on paying talent well? Well, this is a problem that we've seen in a lot of businesses in the consolidation of companies, that we used to have many more companies that we worked for. Now we're down to six. There will be five or five.

What is the number? And it's a low number. Yeah. And it will probably go down to four as these tech companies gobble up these other companies. And so what that does is it reduces competition. reduces competition. So for instance, when I started out in the business, which was a long time ago, if you sold something, you had many different places to try to sell it. And it was in the company's best interest to pay you well if they wanted your product, because if they didn't pay you well, you might go somewhere else. And as these businesses become consolidated, there's less competition, less places to get hired, less

places to sell your work. And that reduces competition and then reduces salaries. Yeah. When I pitched Adam ruins everything in 2015, I pitched TBS, TNT, true TV discovery, pitched tbs tnt true tv discovery uh a bunch of other like non-fiction channels now those are all one company you have one meeting and what is now called max to pitch all of those places half those networks i mean they still exist on your cable channel yes but they're run by one boss right yeah and i also want to just point out on the business side of things you know i think we're we've been accused of well we can't go back to a time where things like this. And for all the reasons, you know, I think David is saying, but I would just like to point out Netflix is selling ads. And, you know, they were the great disruptors and they were the only streaming model that didn't have ads.

And now they do, you know, so I just want to say that, um, it's fair to, you know, to look at the big picture and for these studios to look at the big picture too, because when they say that to us as members of the negotiating committee, you know, talking about, well, you can't go backwards. And then the great disruptor is selling ads. I kind of go, look, something works, some things work and the things that work, we should take into the future and the things that that don't we should leave behind. And I think that that's the smart way to move forward, and I think that ultimately we need to find a deal that does that, right? Yeah, no, absolutely.

And I think that that's the other piece of it is the other thing that's changed is that these companies used to be about making good product to make profit. Now it's about profit growth. It's about pleasing Wall Street. So you – Just making profit isn't enough in it. Right. You got to make sure that your profit keeps growing. Yeah.

And these companies are enormously profitable. Like that's the other thing, too. And this is really tangential a little bit to what Danielle just said, which is we're also not asking for something they can't afford to give us. They are still making enormous profit from the product that we create. So the idea that we can't make a living while these companies are enormously profitable is also something that needs to be addressed. So a lot of people, you know, they react to that a little bit skeptically. They're like, hold on a second.

Writers can't make a living. I have always thought of television writing. Oh, they're all rich. They're all driving Teslas and et cetera. And then Tesla owners will be like, Teslas aren't that expensive. And it's like, well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you boughtlas aren't that expensive. And it's like, well, I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you bought a car that looks expensive, but you know, don't have an argument with me just

because you don't like everybody's looking for an argument, but you know, there there's that, there's that stereotype, right? Um, so let's talk about that a little bit. Like, what is it really like for, for writers in Hollywood right now? Well, there's no question that, that in the old days again when i started out uh writing was a really good profitable career if you had some longevity in the business there was there was ways to get promoted or ways that your your your quote that is what you got paid to write would go up as you stayed in the business and there was sort of a road to success. And there were a lot of really well-paid, uh, um, prosperous writers. Now, uh, with, with, uh, this new streaming model, writers work for much less time.

Uh, half of our writers work at what we call the WGA minimum, which is, which is the minimum somebody's supposed to be paid. Yeah. And now half of us are getting paid. That's supposed to be the floor, but for a lot of people it's become the ceiling. Exactly.

And I was about to say that. That's why I'm the host. And so that, so, And that's all become a function of this new business model where writers are jumping from job to job, that there's no security. There's no sense that you're moving up, that you're making more. You're just going to get that salary for the rest of your career that doesn't allow you to, in some cases, doesn't allow you to live in the city where you work without a second job. Certainly doesn't allow you in Los Angeles to buy a house or have a family. You are, and again, that's a very common situation for workers in America. And our argument is that the companies we're working for are enormously profitable. This shouldn't be the case. We should be able, there should be a road to success. Daniel, have you seen this happening to like writers you work

with? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think one of the staff writers on the last show I did, she has a part-time job at a cookie store. I mean, you know, this is – and she's someone who came through the ranks and paid her dues and was a script coordinator and, you know, a writer's assistant. And, you know, people who are familiar with the business might know that, you know, those are the people who handle the scripts basically for a writer's room. And you pay your dues. And she did that for years. And she finally got the first writing job. But it was in this, it was a Netflix show in this model. And she, you know, she worked for a finite number of weeks and then that was it. And then to try and

find the next job, I think the thing that people maybe don't understand and why would you, my family doesn't understand anything about Hollywood because it doesn't make sense and they're not wrong about that. But you know, you might, you might not get your next job or your next show, wrong about that but you know you might you might not get your next job or your next show um you know for a few months or a year you know that the any numbers that are floated out there about what writers minimums are it's like but that's not 52 weeks that's not how it works and so in in in and even when i was you know i'm old i'm old too i mean i'm not as old as everybody. As me. As me. But I'm old. Are your parents still alive? One of them is. Half of them are.

Half of them are alive. Congratulations. It's not a competition, but I do think I'm young. But if there is, I'm halfway up. So, you know, but I was able and very grateful for the people who came before me in this union and gave me the protections that allowed me to make a career. So I wasn't having to get a second job, you know, but I, but there wasn't constant security shows get canceled. The first show I was on got canceled, you know, and it was eyeopening because they tell

you, get your, take your little box, put all those cute things you put in your office and take it home. And I, I remember saying, but then we don't come back. And they're like, no, you go home. You're good. It's forever. It's done. You're never coming back.

And you know, and I, why didn't you understand? I guess what I didn't, but the thing is, it is kind of, that's what I'm saying. Even when you're in it, that was my first year. But what I didn't understand was it could be gone like that, you know, that, that all of a sudden it's gone. And then I remember being so scared going, I don't know when the next job was going to come. So that's the environment we know we're signing up for. It's not, it's not a stable career. And I think that's the big piece that maybe people who aren't in the career don't understand what a writer's life looks like. So it's that, in addition to all the things that David's saying about, you know, vertical integration and what that's doing to, you know, how many jobs are out there and how it all works. But the truth is, we know as writers and feature writers, that's the Wild West. I mean, that's just, it's so hard to get a movie made. And I think people even outside of the business know that, you know, when something wins an Academy Award and it was like developed for 12 years. And then, you know, it was like, it's crazy that there's not stability in this business.

And we know that. And that's okay. But that's why there needs to be minimum protections. It's what we're fighting for because that's, it's not a business funnel that's nine to five. That's five days a week the way that other industries might be. It's very erratic. And, you know, we have to make sure that writers of today can be writers of tomorrow or that they can even just stay writers of today. Like, it's hard enough, you know, to figure it out.

So, yeah, I definitely know people who are in that situation. And I think there are hundreds, unfortunately, if not thousands of stories of our membership that people are struggling to survive. Let's talk about screenwriters for a second because you brought them up. You know, movies are like in many ways like the high point of American culture. You know, like they're one of our greatest art forms. They were, you know, largely invented and developed here in the United States. There's some of the most valuable media properties that people around the world watch. You know, the American film industry is still the envy of the envy of the world. And it's, you know, you, those are some of the most profound art experiences anybody has,

I think is watching is watching films. Yet it's so tough for writers of films. As far as, you know, even the problems that we're talking about, TV writers have. Screenwriters in many ways have it even worse. Can you guys tell us a little bit about those challenges? Yeah. I mean, because of that lack of competition, less movies are developed. They're developed in the sense of a writer is hired to write a script. hired to write a script. Um, so what, what happens is now screenwriters have to face enormous, um, uh, uh, impediments to, to getting their work even sold. Uh, and so as a result, a lot of writers are finding themselves doing, uh, enormous amounts of, of work for free, trying to develop an idea with a producer.

And then unfortunately, even once they sell their idea, writers are pressured to work for free. It's against our contract to make a writer work for free. That would be a bad contract. If we had it in there, you could work for free. But they sort of say, hey, oh, I know you only have two passes in your contract, but oh, we were really thinking, could you maybe just make some tweaks?

And if you want to keep that good relationship with a producer who's holding a big final payment over your head, you're going to be inclined, as I felt many times in my career, to want to play nice and say, okay, okay, I want to make you happy. So let me do it. I was about to say that. I want to make you happy. So let me do it. I was about to say that.

And, uh, I'm so sorry. No, no, it's fine. You're the host. You're the host. Well,

I like to talk to, you know, I know some of this stuff, uh, but no, that's exactly it. And, uh,

because of the insecurity of the, of the profession that we're in, that Danielle was talking about, screenwriters are always thinking not just about their current job situation, but the next job. And if I get a reputation of not playing ball and being difficult and say, you got to pay me for everything I do, you feel like they won't hire me for the next one. And it's a very, again, I've been in that situation too. Actually, I did a, I, I, I'm not primarily a, a, a movie writer, but I, I, when I was president of the guild, I also at the same time had sold a movie and I was getting to write a movie for, for Paramount and it was a very big job and I was very excited. And all the way through,

I was really worried. What if they ask me for free work? What am I going to do? I'm president of the guild. And what am I going to do? And all the way through, they paid me for every step. And I got to the end and no one ever asked me for a day of free work. And I actually asked them, I said, yeah, I'm kind of surprised you guys didn't ask for a free pass. And the producer looked at me and says, we can, you're president of the guild. So they know, they know, they know everybody knows. So that's the two things is, uh, you don't want to work for free, become president of the writers guild Guild. Which is, by the way, an unpaid job. It's an unpaid job. And I want to talk about that in a bit, but what's your thought?

But it really speaks to the fact that they absolutely understand that this is wrong. Yeah. That this is against the contract. That they could get in trouble if a writer reported them. Yeah. And it keeps happening because of the dire situation of feature writers. It gives the power imbalance.

Yeah. I mean, first, we should let everyone know the AMPTP assured us that there is no free work in feature science. It's actually called collaboration. So everyone rest assured. We raised this issue to them and that's what they said. It's just collaboration.

I felt comforted by that. No, I do. It's something that I've learned beyond the negotiating committee. And this is to everything I didn't hear. I didn't know that story, which is an amazing story. But this speaks to that. And I actually got asked by a reporter yesterday kind of in this topic, but power, right? That there's a lot of like, well, who gets what?

And I realize as being part of the committee that what we're doing is we're making sure that it's power is not a requirement to get what you need and to get paid for your job and that like the mba like the the the base this is like okay you have to pay us this you have to do this and you know the union has fought for this since its existence to make sure that the studios don't take advantage of us because we don't all have the same amount of power. So the pressure, you know, the fact that that happened for David, and we know that that doesn't happen for other writers. And, you know, I, the, the thing I was asked yesterday was like, we were talking about the television business and the model and the reporter said, so why did you go

work at Netflix? Which was a really good, fair question, you know, because I'm sitting there saying, here's the problem. And I said a couple of things. One is I didn't, I hadn't fully been in the streaming model, so I didn't completely understand. I knew because I had friends and I, you know, I kind of knew what was happening, but I didn't know exactly. And I said, the other thing is that I think I thought I had more power than I did. I thought I, 20 years of making television, that they would trust me if I said I needed writers longer, that there would be some amount of like a discussion. And what happened was I was told no. You know, and I think another thing that, you know, the MPTV told us is that, well, you guys dictate how long you want writers.

And then we provide, you know, this fairy tale of what's happening. And the truth is they know they're they're taking advantage of loopholes constantly with regard to how we're treated, you know, by these studios. And, and so I, uh, something, I guess I'm, what I'm saying is I'm proud to be a member of a union and proud to be on the negotiating committee. Cause what we're all thinking about is we need to make sure that there's a basic amount of security for all of our writers in all of the industries of, you know, the writing that we do. And, And that's really what this contract is. That's what's negotiated every three years. And it's, you know, that's the, what did they tell us?

We were lucky to have term employment. The truth is we're lucky to be part of a union. That's the thing I'm actually grateful for is to be part of a union because that statement is so offensive and luck has nothing to do with it. It's all union power, you know, and that's, that's what she said to us in the room. She said, Oh, writers are Carol Lombardini, the chief negotiator for the MPTP, which is all the companies coming together said, Oh, writers are lucky to have term employment, meaning we're lucky to be on for a

guaranteed amount of time at all. Meaning that if they wanted to, they could take that away. Hey, you're lucky. You're lucky to give this to you when what we're fighting for is to have that be put in our contract so that we have that security. Right. Yeah. And as a union, we can take collective action, which is what we're out there doing at every studio, you know, we're walking together is to say, actually, we're a union. So you can't do that to us. And if we weren't a union, they would do it to us all the time. So that's why I'm proud of, yeah, 90 years ago that, that, you know, that we formed this union and LA is, you probably heard us chanting it. If you've driven past the studio, LA is a union town, you know, and, and, and there's a reason why we need to protect ourselves and work together to make sure that, yeah, that, that we, we have this,

these basic, you know, kind of. When I think about that stereotype that, you know, in Hollywood, everyone's well paid, that all the people who make the shows are well paid. It's only because of the existence of unions, because this is one of the strongest union towns remaining in America. And then not just for us, but for the directors, for the actors, for the crew members, for the truck drivers and other trades as well. But also the companies are constantly trying to change that. They all hate the unions. They're all constantly trying to break the unions and using every technique that they can. And they're doing it to all the unions in different ways.

And it's our job as a union to like step up once every 15 years or so and, and really strongly say, we're not going to allow that to happen. And, and I, I relate to what you said that that's, you know, I'm,

I'm very aware that if in 2007, we hadn't gone on strike to get the, I wasn't in the guild at the time, but if the guild, we were sorry to constantly be undermining it. I'm a spring chicken. I was, I was, you know, I was a comedian in New York. I wasn't in the guild yet. But I knew that it was for, it was for coverage of the

internet. It was to make sure that the writer's guild had coverage of the internet. My second show I ever did, one of the two shows I made was for Netflix. If it weren't for that fight, I wouldn't have health insurance right now because that show would have been made non-union. And so it's like, all right, now it's my turn to take a fight that's going to benefit me, but also other people later on. Yeah. No, and that was, I mean, that fight in 2007 was really, was a difficult one in the sense that it was hypothetical.

There was no streaming in 2007. It was all, Netflix was a DVD company. Hulu went live the day the strike ended. And so in that, in that case, we were looking at a future that we were, that guild staff had sort of figured out and with the leadership and we had to, to, we're fortunate that our, we have a very smart, well-educated membership that we could appeal to to say, look, this is what the future is going to be if we don't get this coverage now. If we don't go on strike for this now, we're going to be looking at a very bleak future. And it's very similar to what's going on right now. Like obviously writers are suffering now, but we're seeing this is not just

a moment in time where they're suffering, but this is a trend that's going to get worse. Yeah. And if we don't do something about it now, we, we are facing a very bleak future as writers. Don't put some parameters around these things. Less writers will be hired. Less writers will earn a living. And all the things that kind of give us our power, you know, our collective might around earnings and pension and health. If that all goes away, we lose our powers of union. Yeah, I mean, I have a great example of that personally, which is that, you know, for folks who don't know, the the guild that I work in as, as broadly called comedy variety, it's like late night writing, nonfiction comedy writing. I'm a standup comedian and all my friends do that type of work. And, you know, for, for decades, the, uh, the standard for that has been on a late night show. You know, you have a 30,

like if you're right for one of those shows, you're guaranteed a 13 week contract, you're paid a certain amount every week. And that's like one of, frankly, the very few good paying jobs of any kind for that type of writing on SNL or on to the tonight show or something like that. And the best and final that we got from the final offer that we got from the MPTP for that in streaming was that instead of being paid on 13 week contract, they'd pay us on a on a day rate, that they could hire us one day and fire us the next day. And I looked at that and said, that means the end of this job. Like, you know, that means that, you know, I literally grew up hoping to have one of those jobs and then lucking into, you know, making my own show instead. But, you know, that's no longer a career if you're being paid on that rate.

That's a side hustle. That's they, they'll, you know, Hey, maybe, maybe on Monday and Tuesday, you get to go in and pick, you know, pitch some jokes to the night, to the night, tonight show before you go to the comedy club, you know, on Thursday and Friday to try to make a living. Um, and so it really does feel that, that existential and everybody, and that's just to me personally, I know every late night writer feels that way, but every screenwriter has a version of that fear. And every episodic writer does, too, because we've seen it happening to us. We've seen the steps on the way towards them eliminating what we do. Right.

Yeah. And, you know, I think something that a lovely thing that's happening right now, and I think you can we can feel it on the picket lines, certainly as members of this union, is that we learned about each other's experiences in a way that maybe we hadn't before. So all of the writing that you're talking about, what you did is appendix A. And I think there are a lot of writers who didn't even know why is it called appendix A? I don't know. Maybe you can explain it. It doesn't really matter. You just need to understand who in our guild is appendix A and it's comedy variety, like you're saying. And daytime and soap opera writers are also under that. And so, you know, I think that we all realize that we're fighting for each other and it's why we're so unified. And I think it does have a different feeling than 2007, 8 to me. I wasn't

negotiating with me, but I just think that we really are like, we really are. I think the labor movement in general in America, you know, this is a time when we're all kind of getting informed and involved in involved with that and understanding, well, what are people going through an Amazon warehouses and Starbucks and, you know, all of these amazing movements. And I think within our own guild, I've just seen it. I've talked to people online. I had someone call me and ask me about appendix a, she was an episodic writer. She wanted to know about appendix a and what is it and understand more about it um and i just i think that's a really good thing that we will carry forward um to to be able to understand we don't all do the

same thing and a lot of us do cross over into multiple you know kind of areas of writing work but i've i've really uh appreciated the conversations and certainly on the negotiating committee we represent you know we try and represent the entire union so we're really diverse in terms of what writing area of writing we're in. And I think that that's been hugely valuable. We'll never lose that as a union. I want to talk more about how we actually build that power in the union, but we've got to take a really quick break. We'll be right back with more David Goodman and Danielle Sanchez-Whitsall. Did you notice how many times you talked about being the host and And like, I created my own show and the hostess.

Yeah, I have noticed that a little bit. You thought I talked about that a lot. I think he wanted to make sure that. I have a feeling segment two is going to really, he's going to come in hard. Well, he wants to make sure people watching it know that it's his show. It's hard to tell.

There's no way to know. There's no way to know. Okay, I'm keeping the ball busting in. We're back with David Goodman and Daniel Sanchez-Whitson. I can't lose that gold. I deserve it. So look, I want to know what is different about the Writers Guild and how we organize things. There's a lot of unions in America, right? We are a union though, that really actually mobilizes member power. We're actually right now on the picket line, trying to starve the companies out and say, you don't get any more content because we're the people who make it.

That's a very difficult thing to marshal that kind of power. And so how do we do it? Like, like what is our, you know, let's talk about our democratic process and, and, you know, how we work with our members. That's a complicated question, Adam. I, uh, uh, so that, so the guild historically, um, I always like to talk a little bit about where it all started. You had writers who were working under studio contracts and they didn't have any control over credit or they were being paid and here were writers creating things. And a studio could literally hire a writer to write a whole script and then have another writer write a little piece of it and give that last writer the credit for the whole thing. And that's kind of where the guild started, which is writers fighting for their credit. This is the 1930s.

Yeah. And that's really where it started. That was like the first thing the writers got. The guild determines your credit on a show or a movie. And that goes back to then, to when the guild started. And then over time, there was money associated with that. Obviously, back then, it was really about your career. If you obviously wrote Casablanca, you'd

want everybody to know that, because then it would help you get another job. That, oh, actually, I don't know. Was Casablanca hit when it came out? It doesn't matter. Yeah, it might have been. But anyway, leave it to the kids to figure that out.

Use the internet thing. But money became associated with that as the guild kind of grew its power. Um, there were things called residuals where it was a way for, um, writers to benefit from the reuse of their, of their work. Um, and so now, uh, we, we, we have a, we have a board of directors, which is elected. They're writers. They're our leaders. They don't.

I'm on the board currently. You're on the board. A couple of years ago. And I was on the board for about 15 years. And then I was vice president and president for a few years. that leadership body is meant to stay connected to the membership in general and, and make sure that the concerns of the members are addressed either in contract negotiations or between contract negotiations. And we, we have, I think a membership body that writers are collaborative. It's the nature of the job. Feature writers have to collaborate with producers and directors and then

actors and then television writers, same thing. And they've got to collaborate with each other. And I think that gives us an enormous leg up in, in the sense of we're already used to working with other people to get what we want and or need. And so that's, to me, that's sort of a generalized sort of core description of what the Guild does. Did you want more specifics? No, that's good.

Yeah, that was good. I think it's important. That was good. It was really good. i think it's important to say that that leadership again is all unpaid it's it's people doing volunteer time for their own community it's often when you're a president or when you're leading the negotiations as you are it's a full-time job for those of us who are on the negotiating committee we were spending 40 hours a week at it um and you know i i think for that reason the the membership does feel

generally represented. Danielle, you've not, I don't believe you've been on the board. Never. This is the first time. Next year, maybe. It's an amazing experience. I, yeah. Well, just tell me a little bit about, you've been in the Guild for 20 years, as you've

said. What has been your experience as a member, you know, feeling represented by the Guild and, you know, the democratic process? Yeah. I mean, I've always, I've always appreciated being a member, you know, feeling represented by the Guild and, you know, the democratic process? Yeah. I mean, I've always appreciated being a member of a union. I understood that, you know, health and pension, that that was coming from, you know, union work, residuals, you know, that the things that were, the things I was saying as starting a career as a TV writer and being on a show that got canceled, but somehow figuring out how to pay rent until the next job. But all of those things, you know, um, that I had were, were because of the union, because, because people came before me and made sure we had those and understood what was

broken back then before me and fix that. And here we are figuring out what's broken now and trying to fix that for, you know, for current members in the future. But, but, um, I, I certainly think getting engaged with the guild, I would advise people that, you know, taking a turn doing it just because they think, well, one, because some people have been doing it so long that it's like, is this enough? It's time for them to be done. I say it with such love and respect. I go, I don't know. I'd so, I don't know. Like it's a lot, it's a lot to do. I think there's a lot of responsibility. I certainly jumped into the deep end here on a negotiating

committee that it turned into strike action. I'm really grateful for it. But I think I always had an awareness, but I didn't, until you're in there, I say to members of our union, get on a committee and, you know, just get involved because I think that seeing it up close, I think you have a much deeper appreciation for the staff. I mean, I can just speak to that specifically. I didn't understand how many smart lawyers were in that building whose job was just to fight for us every day. I've met two or three people who I've met on our staff from serving on the board.

And these are the staff members who we employ who actually are paid to work for the union. And I've met them and thought, my God, this person could work in D.C. This person could work for a congressperson or in the White House. They have such policy brains. They're such incredible research wonks. They know what's going on and what we need to push for. It's incredible. Yeah. And to be able to see that I didn't, I didn't, so I don't think I fully grasped, but even really until the negotiating, being on the negotiating committee, I just didn't understand.

And you know, the way our, as you guys know, cause you were in the room with me, but the way the caucus room worked where we were, which is just the room where the writers met when during negotiations, when we were kind of on our own you know we actually we were at a table in the middle and all of the staff surrounded us on the outside that's just how they set up the room i guess so we talked to each other but it was an amazing feeling to walk in every day i don't know if we ever actually verbalized that or i didn't see anyone but it was like they were on the outside protecting us and we were on the inside talking about what we needed and it's very much the way the guild functions you know that room was a function that's a great metaphor for uh it is and there's a thing that happens in

looking at the broad swath of american unions where where you know sometimes the staff that people are paid to be there every day will sort of end up running the union to a certain extent um uh but in in this union in a union that's really run democratically it really is they're like hey you guys are the writers you're the ones who were trying to serve. You make the decisions about what to do. We're here to advise and inform and steer a little bit. If, if there's something we think you need to know about, but it's, it's a truly democratic process from top to bottom. And it ends up being really inspiring to participate in. Like for me, it was addictive. Every time, you know, I went to a meeting, I was like, wait, this is, wait, I said something. And then we, we did something different because I said something.

Yeah. Well, that's the thing. When I, um, when I joined the union in, in 1988, I have a cousin, uh, who was a union organizer in the, and then became a chief counsel for, for the communication workers union. And her name's my cousin, Judy. And she's, she was a real union person. And she said to me, you got to get involved. Your union is the one bureaucracy in your life you can have an effect on. True. And, uh, I didn't get involved for many years. You're like, fuck you, Judy. Oh, that's very good. Yeah, No, I was, it was a good long time and I got involved right, right before the 2007 strike. Um, and then once I was involved, I realized how much of a, a thread we're all hanging by that, that, that involvement in your union isn't just something

where you can have an effect, but it's so necessary that, um, it, a union can go away tomorrow. Yeah. Like if, if, if people aren't dead, if the members aren't dedicated to its survival, uh, and don't keep that minute to minute, uh, uh, conscious consciousness of, of the union's fragility, uh, it can go away tomorrow. And, and that's why I stayed involved because, because I, I felt like, oh, I I've gotten so much from this union. I mean, I, I, I've been able to stay exactly what we're fighting for. The ability to stay a writer. My career has had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of period where, and one story in particular where I was done as a writer, and this was about 12 years into my 35-year career, I was done. I couldn't get work. I was

the last place I had worked. I had not gone well. It was very hard for me to get a job. My wife and I are talking seriously, talking seriously about, I maybe need to stop. Um, I start, I started the day I start like figuring out a new resume that maybe I can get a job working at a studio as a development person. I got a residual check for this terrible show that I had done awful, awful show, but it played somewhere and it gave me this giant chunk of a residual check that allowed me to ride ride out this period and that was because the guild existed that was because other writers who i didn't know 20 30 years before had fought for residuals yeah had gone on strike for residuals yeah and now And now I could stay a writer a little,

a little longer and, and got, uh, shortly after that got hired at family guy, which changed my, my career completely. Yeah. Um,

Oh, family guy. Wasn't the awful show. No. Okay. Well, I was thinking about, I have other stories about people saying it is,

but I, I, uh, uh, a rabbi's wife was actually the best story. Anyway. Uh, that's a, that's an best story. Anyway, that's an awful show. Actually, that was actually cool.

But no, it was a show that was not a success, but it had run for a year in syndication, and it gave me this check, and it let me write it out. And that's what we're talking about, is that the Guild is there so that writers can ride out the rough spots and have a career that lasts. And obviously I'm very lucky that the guild has existed in my career and we've got to make sure it does for others. And one of the things you said made me think about like when I'm on the picket line, something that really blows me away is, you know, we're fighting against the machinery of capitalism.

You know, like we talk about the people, Carol Lombardini, the MPTP, Ted Sarandos, whatever. They're not actually that important. It's the machinery of capitalism that's trying to trying to push us down. It's Wall Street making the companies do these things. And we are fighting back against them using just our humanity, using nothing but writers talking to other writers, calling them up saying, Hey, do you want to go to the picket line today? Hey, make sure if you're thinking about, you know, doing some work, don't do it. Remember we're on strike. Just those, those connections between us, those bonds of, Oh, Hey, Danielle's on the negotiating committee.

I know her, she's fighting for me. I know she's a good person. Just nobody says that, but just those, just those conversations right we're just literally 10 to 12 000 people talking to each other yeah using nothing but our like raw humanity to try to fight back against them and i'm convinced we're gonna win i know we're gonna win because right we're so unified i'm convinced we're gonna win too it's i am too i mean i wouldn't i wouldn't i don't think any of us would be here you know if we didn't think that and i's, you know, certainly talking to people as I'm sure you guys both have to on the line, there's, there's stress and there's fear and there's optimism. There's all the things, you know, because they think we, we see our own value and, you know, we believe it. We don't question it. What is it? Anyone who's a storyteller understands this is a craft and i think i was in an interesting conversation with someone the other day about when it turned to content is when things started getting problematic saying the word content it was very astute thing to say it was like that's true because what we do you know it is a craft i think we even even the

terrible shows you were on there was some there was, look, I've been on many shows, you know, when someone says list your credits, it's like, I'm going to list so many shows you didn't see. But, you know, there are a lot of us who are working writers who are working on shows you didn't see. You know what I mean? Because it takes a lot, you know,

because that's just what we, that's how the business works. And, you know, but there is craft to it. And I think that we understand that, you know. And there's no way around it. And I think that we understand that, you know, um, and, and there's no way around it. And America exports film and TV, even in this global marketplace. You know, I think there's been a lot of talk about, well, Netflix has all these shows and they can watch and I'm sure there's, you know, there's, there's good content on there, but there's never going to

not be a need for our content. There just isn't, you know, so there's gotta be a solution to this because we're not going to stop making American television and films. That's not how this ends, you know? So, so, so, um, yeah, I mean, I think the, the, the way forward is, is a fair deal. It's not a love, it's not a love of the job, even though that was suggested how we get out of this. David Zaslav said that he says, Oh, it's going to end because of a love of working. The writers just, they're going to miss working so much. Oh. I wish I was working. Yeah. That's he clearly doesn't understand writers. Nothing is worse than writing. And yet, and yet, yeah, exactly. Yeah. I mean, it, it seems as though what we really have to do is remind the people who run these companies that,

that we make the product that they have nothing without us. And they're sort of sitting up there going, I can do it without them. And they've forgotten because it's been a while since 2007 that they quite literally cannot. I think I look at it slightly differently in that I think they completely understand they need us. I think they completely understand they need us, but they rely on a writer's feeling that I can be replaced. I have no value. Security, that's a very smart understand that there's a way in which I don't know that they are conscious that they understand it. But they they, you know, in every deal that a writer makes for for a job that they play on that, they play on a writer's desire what zazlov said love of working i i love that i get to write for a living and so there's always that fear that it's going to be taken away someone's going to say you don't get to do this anymore you've got to do the backbreaking labor your parents did and that the um that killed them clearly because they're both dead and uh now i see why you worked on family that's dark but um

actually they did anyway they worked very hard i'm just not backbreaking labor but anyway all i'm saying is that the companies understand how much they need us but they're never going to acknowledge it and they never have to uh and they've sort of forced us to acknowledge it for ourselves because they're, they're never going to give us that power because they understand that they, if they could have gotten rid of us, they would have a long time ago. And I think there's something else that there was an amazing thing.

So today at Netflix, which is where I was picketing this morning, there was a Latin X picket and there was a queer picket. So communities decided, OK, everybody, let's go and do this. So it was an amazing vibe. Just, you know, a huge, you know, a huge loop of beautiful writers walking together. And, you know, I started thinking about and talking about to some writers, this is a global marketplace. And that's the cool thing about streaming.

That's the plus side of Netflix is that, you know, I have a show that's going to premiere in the summer to 190 countries. That's amazing. And we finally, and especially in the last, you know, three years, opened the door wider in our own union, you know, to storytellers who are telling the stories of underrepresented communities. And that's incredible. You know, that's incredible. It's, we need to,

there's universality in, in all of those stories. You know, they just haven't had a chance to be told in movies and TV in the numbers that, you know, that, that,

that other points of view have been represented in storytelling. And so I'm thinking about that and I'm going, well, Netflix of all the places needs that. They need those writers because that's a, that their consumer that is global is going to demand stories from many different points of view. So for all the reasons you, David just said, and also this bigger point that I saw when I had so much pride being part of the Latinx picket this morning, I had so much pride walking with queer writers was like, you know,

of the Latinx picket this morning, I had so much pride walking with queer writers, was like, you know, they need this. And if we don't protect and make sure that those writers who are finally getting into the guild, that they can, one, sustain a career right now, to two, make sure that they are creators of shows and movies and, you know, really telling their stories, that's going to be a big problem for these companies.

You know, it's not broadcast linear television only that, by the way, also needs all of those changes, you know, and also needs those stories to be told. But there's a demand. If I'm paying you $16.99, guess what? I need these stories. And so it's another reason why I think, you know, and there are uniquely, you know, I think we're just made up of so many communities as a Writers Guild in America that have, you know, just so many different perspectives that a global marketplace wants to see. And so I think that, you know, that's a huge thing that's really coming. Like, I'm really realizing that as we're marching together, I'm really realizing that,

hold on, we're actually, I think we said this, no one's ever going to tell the story this way, but we're saving them from themselves. They're never going to tell that story. But the truth is, the model itself is breaking, certainly of television writing. I don't know if they don't believe us. They don't care. It doesn't matter. But us fighting is actually going to save this model and make sure the voices that I'm talking about are going to actually be able to stay in the business. And they're going to need all of that. All they care about is making money.

We know that. But guess what? This is what money is going to, you know, to make money is going to demand these storytellers telling stories. And I think maybe we haven't talked about it as, you know, as much as we, as, as we can or should, but I certainly hit me this morning, um, that point and, and, and how important those voices are to the business model. So they need us in a million ways in ways that we aren't even talking about. And I'm so proud that all those writers feel represented by the guild because, you know, I mean, one of the, one of the sort of the sins of 20th century American unions was how exclusive so many of them were to, you know, to minorities, folks of all types, anyone other than white men in many

cases. But yeah, I really do feel that we're saving them from themselves, saving the companies from themselves because I mean, if you look at the history of why is there so much great writing on American television, American movies is because this was the one industry that paid writers for throughout history. That's why Faulkner and F Scott Fitzgerald came here and drank themselves to death, you know, was because this is the place that they could actually, I don't know if we want to put that on. Okay. Yeah. You're right. Well, how to sell a career. They had enough money to buy all that booze to drink themselves to death. But like there have been so many incredible writers have come through this industry because this is the one industry where actually you could get a little piece of all that massive profit that you can't from the magazine. And just look at journalism today. Right. And how many writers cannot make a living, you know, writing for journalism in the consolidation of those companies is that they

will, they're going to either crush or gobble each other up. And then, and then we're going to see, if, if we don't succeed in this fight, we're going to see a run to the middle, uh, in terms of content and all this sort of great, clever, uh, wonderful stuff that's been made in the last few years won't be made anymore. And then it'll be, I was hearing that one of the studios was asking where we want to develop lean back television, which is a television you can watch while you're folding your laundry. Yeah. And, and again, there's a, there's room for that.

Obviously. I think it's called Netflix. I think and there's room for that. Uh, but, but that, but that's what it'll all be. Yeah. It'll be sort of, and that's very sad because we are really seeing, we saw a real, when the technology changed, when, when the companies were competing for that streaming audience, we saw an explosion of creativity, explosion of, of incredible work by writers and directors and actors, like things that, you know, so memorable. And although I can name one right now and, uh, and, and, and that was out of competition. And once that competition goes away, we will, we will lose, we will lose that.

We will lose exactly what Danielle is talking about. Well, before we wrap up, let's talk about just in terms of that middle of the road content, let's talk about AI for one second, because you can't get out of an interview about this strike without being asked about AI. I'm very much on the record as a skeptic about the technology. I feel that it's, I do, I do not believe that AI can do the work of a writer because writing isn't just outputting texts, which is all these algorithms do. Writing is talking to the executives, talking to the director, you know, knowing what is

cheaper, knowing that you can't have that scene where someone jumps into a pool, um, you know, adjusting things on the fly. It's, it's person to person work. Like you said, David, it's collaborative and, you know, a fancy magnetic poetry, no matter how good it is, it can't replace that. But we still do have a genuine concern about it. I mean, Danielle, we were both in the room when they sort of like responded to our AI proposals. Like what worries you about what could happen? Yeah. I mean, luckily there are members of the negotiating committee that are way smarter than I am when it comes to AI. But we really do have some people who really understand it deeply.

I think this is the broad strokes terms of how I think about AI and how it's coming, because that's what I've done, you know, mostly in my career, but I think about, okay, if they are, if what happened when we brought tech in or what happened, I don't, I guess that's what we're, what happened when Netflix came in and streaming came in is, you know, it was like, okay, let's see how few people we can still get the job done with and how little we can pay them for how short amount of time. Right. in the test run phase, I would say, which is what's been happening, you know, for the last six years, the test run phase of seeing how few people can we get away with using, then I don't know why they wouldn't go, can we get away with not using people? That's how I think about it, broad strokes. And so I think what we're here to do in this negotiations is protect us from, from get some foothold in all of the protections that we're going to need, because what I can clearly see, and I went from 19 years of broadcast television, linear television, to one year of streaming, making two shows for two different streamers and going, oh, God. You know, like this is what's happening. And so what I'm saying, that fear is, I think, to me, who's not well-versed in AI and shouldn't be the one talking about it from a technology standpoint, just from a, how little can we get away with paying to still do this and to still make billions of dollars?

That's what scares me about AI. Yeah. What do you think, David? I mean, I agree with all that. And I think that, you know, I, because I didn't really sort of start to fully understand it until recently, it does sort of compare in my mind to the thought process that I had in 2007 when staff members of the Guild were explaining to me, people are going to have watch television shows on their computer. People are going to have things called smart televisions,

which will hook in to the computer and the internet. And I was thinking, what is he talking about? No one's going to watch TV. It takes an hour and a half to download two seconds of video. No, I'm never going to make television. And here we are. And yet, here we are. Do an interview on YouTube. Exactly.

So for me, whether you're a skeptic or not, the technology is impressive, and there's no question that somebody's going to try. And then we don't know what those advances are going to be. And maybe there's a hump that you get over very quickly where the AI can write scripts. And suddenly, lots and lots of, as Danielle was saying, writers are out of a job. And, and the fact is the technology of AI is such that the way it is currently is it's, it's what's called scraping, uh, uh, scripts from the internet. writing writer's work that already exists to, to do its work or writing that's already exists to do its work. And, um, that's just wrong. Uh, we can't, we can't let that in any way replace a writer. If it, it, it may be a tool that a writer may use, but, but it cannot be a tool that the companies use to replace writers. Yeah. I mean, here's, here's my fear is that, look again, all these things do is output text. I don't think there'll be able to do,

if you, if you had an AI that could talk to the director, right. And talk to all those other people, take notes from the studio. That would be truly a science fiction artificial. Now that I want to sign up for notes from the studio. That's a whole other, that would be incredible. And we could assign them to do that. But like, that studio yes that's a whole other that would be incredible yeah and we could assign them to do that but like that's that that is truly a science fiction idea we're not nearly close to that um what what they currently have are these things that can chew up text and output new text yeah my fear is that they say okay well the ai output this great script right now we just

need you to talk to the director, talk to the executive, go to set, go to the edit. Oh, but you didn't write it. The AI wrote it. We're going to pay you less than we used to be paid because we'll know that what we're doing is the work of writing, but they've used this loophole to sort of write us out of the process.

And to me, you know, our proposals to them were like, hey, just, you can't, you won't, don't do that. You know, like you can't pass off the work of an AI as the work of a writer and you can't assign us to rewrite an AI. And we kind of thought this would be an easy proposal because, uh, it's not even clear that the work of an AI currently is copyrightable. And so it's a zero cost proposal to them. And when they stonewalled on it, I was like alarming because it's, yeah, well, they said the quote was, we, we are, we don't want to inhibit our, our company's ability to take advantage of this technology. I mean, that was the quote. Yeah. And it's like, what is that telling you? That's like, it means they intend to do it. Yeah. Everything you're

scared of, you should be scared of. Yeah. It's like the line I keep saying is it's like asking someone like, Hey, would you agree not to pull out a gun and shoot me in the face? Like while we at lunch? And they said, I don't think I'll agree to that. And you're like, well, now I'm worried. I wasn't before. Um, but I, Daniel, you're right. That is, it's part of this. They've been so intent on grinding down labor, not just for writers, but for actors, directors, and crew and doing more with as little people as possible throughout the entire economy that it's like, yeah, we can't put it past them. Um, so let's end here. I mean, I think one of the reasons that this fight has really resonated has taken off in the media. We've gotten support from everywhere. We've gotten support from every other union in town from unions that aren't even in our town is because literally every worker in America is

facing this. We've got low unemployment, but nobody can afford to pay rent anymore. And so we're very lucky, I think, to be in this union, heavily unionized industry where we have this infrastructure, we can, we can go out and pick it. And, and we are protected by labor law. A lot of folks don't have those unions at all. So for folks who are watching, who are like, you know, who like what we're doing here, maybe a little bit inspired by it. Do you have any advice for them?

Uh, I mean, thank you. Uh, I, I, I don't, I mean, advice. I mean, you can, uh, show your support, uh, if you're in LA or New York or a city where their picket lines join the picket line. Uh, there's also contributions we've, we've spent, um, writers have stepped up to create an entertainment fund to help other people in our business support staff and other union people who are out of work now because of our strike. Obviously, contributions to that would be welcome. Maybe you put that in the end of your show. I will. Hey, he's the host.

Don't tell him what to do. He'll decide what to do. How do we know he's the host. Don't tell him what to do. He'll decide what to do. How do we know he's the host? Why? Very hard. But you have any advice? I mean, you know, I do think social media is something. It existed in 2007, 8, you know, so when we were walking picket lines 15 years ago.

But not in the way that it does now. So there were some ways where we could see boards and stuff where people were talking about. But now, you know, the Duffer Brothers post from the Stranger Things Twitter account that writing and production cannot be separated. So that show cannot be made until we get a fair deal. deal. And fans of that show, first of all, know who they are, knew who they were, you know, from the start, because I think we have savvy audiences now who understand how film and TV are made, and are using social media to say, they support us to say, I'm going to cancel my subscription until or, you know, they're, they're going to be fans are going to be disrupted. And we're storytellers. And we're not storytellers for the stories to go nowhere. We're storytellers for the stories to go to audiences.

And so I think just from an emotional standpoint, seeing support in social media I think has been huge for all of us, picketing. But I also think that there are, you know, the labor movement in America is led by young people, right? And I think social media is a tool of it. So all of the ways that, you know, what is my advice is to do what you do, young people with social media, you know, because I think that you're changing, they're changing the world and there's no putting a stop to that. That is grassroots. That is gone.

That is happening. Even if Elon Musk is the owner of Twitter, Twitter is still used. I got back on Twitter just for this because I was like, I don't want to miss things that are happening during the strike because it is a unifying way for me to talk to people all over the world about what's going on. I guess keep the conversations going with use social media the way you guys know how to use it the way I love when someone tries to stop young people from doing something and they're like, just hold on.

We're going to work around that very quickly. You know, we have members of our own union, you know, who think that way. And, and, um, you know, so I, I think that that that's there, that's the most positive, you know, revolutions have come out of social media. That's the most positive use of it. Obviously we know the downsides of it too. And, you know, so I guess what I'm willing, I'm saying is I'm willing to see you tell me my show is shit on Twitter. If you are also supporting the fact that we are, you know, there's a bigger cause here that, that we're, you know, cause it's used for both for sure. But, you know, I'm, I think that's just different. And I don't think these studios kind of thought through, you know, we got threatening letters. A lot of us who are on, on overall deals, threatening letters. And I don't,

cause even when I saw them telling you, you have to keep working, you have to keep working and here's what you do. And by the way, you can leave your union if you want to. And here's all the steps that you need to be able to do that. You know, and in 2007, eight, those letters were not mocked by fans of their favorite shows. That was, there was no option for that. Maybe there was an article, you know, then maybe there was something that was online, but now i'm seeing people who are not in our union read those letters and go what are they saying and you know corporate greed and fight the man and all this stuff and it's like i don't know that these studios i don't think i don't think that they're affected by it i just you know i just think that it's a different world

that we're in and so i think that that's where um the support of people outside of our union is actually constructive, you know, and who knows what impact it will have. But I'm all for seeing what impact it does have, you know. against these companies, against capitalism, whatever, whatever world you're working in, uh, people are going to stand up to support you. Just like we've seen when Starbucks workers are organizing, when Amazon workers are organizing writers guild members supported them. Uh, when our, you know, sister unions and entertainment are, are going to have their, you know, are having their fights. We're going to have their backs. They're just like, they're having our backs right now. We already did during the IOTC last last year. Writers Guild members stood up en masse to support the crews who are represented by that union. And I think that is directly related to why IATSE is supporting us now. They see that we are allies.

Yeah. And it's like a new age of solidarity in Hollywood, but also in America. I mean, I'm seeing writers posting about the UPS Teamsters, you know, contract and understanding what that's about. And I think, I think the more we all, you know, the, the workers of the world, you know, are, are able to kind of support each other. I don't know. Sorry, are you a Marxist?

Okay. You've just been taken off YouTube. It's amazing. It is amazing. It is amazing to kind of see us all be aware of each other's struggles and to say, yeah, if you stand up for me and I stand up for you,

there's going to be way more of us than them. Right. So that's kind of how, that's how that works. That's a beautiful note to end on. Thank you so much for being here, Danielle and David. Thank you for having us.

Thank you for having us on your show. I'll see you on the picket line where I'm not, I won't be hosting anything. I'll just be, we picket line where I'm not, I won't be hosting anything. I'll just be, we'll all be, I'm going to go visit my parents. Well, thank you once again to David and Danielle for coming on the show.

If you want to materially support the writer's guilt strike head to entertainment, community fund.org, click donate, select film and TV from the dropdown menu and donate as much as you can. That money will go to directly support crew members affected by the strike, and we thank you for doing it. If you want to support the show, head to patreon.com slash adamconover.

I want to thank everybody who supports this show, especially at the $15 a month level. I'd love to read off some of your names. Thank you so much to Rebecca Beya. Thank you to Andy Smith. Thank you to Christopher Wheeler. And thank you to Serious Dinosaur. And thank you to Serious Dinosaur. Very good username, Serious Dinosaur.

If you want to join Serious Dinosaur, head to patreon.com slash Adam Conover. We'd love to see you there. Thank you so much to Tony Wilson and Sam Rodman for producing the show. And I also want to thank the folks at HeadGum where we're getting set up. We are going to have one more dark week after this episode comes out because we're still getting set up in our new studio. But starting in just a couple of weeks, we're going to have new episodes for you every single week, both on the podcast feed and on YouTube. So excited about it. So stick around. We'll see

you next time on Factually. That was a HeadGum Podcast.