Why Newspapers Love Striking Screenwriters

Jack Shafer writes:

Newspaper reporters tend to identify with their cinematic brethren because writers tend to look out for other writers no matter what genre they work in. One New York Times article from this week noted with no irony how book authors will suffer if Steven Colbert and Jon Stewart’s shows, now crippled by the strike, don’t get back into production soon. Also, from a distance, the Writers Guild strike shimmers with heroism for liberal journalists at the Los Angeles Times (which has no union) and the New York Times and Washington Post (which have weakling unions). They’re living vicariously through their comrades’ glorious struggle.

This identification runs deeper than labor politics. Where their predecessors once hoped to write the Great American Novel, too many of today’s newspaper reporters and editors will confide over drinks the big screenplay they want to write based on that murder story they covered, that business takeover, that guerilla battle, that crime caper, that city hall corruption saga, and so on.