by Mike Hall, Jan 24, 2008

No wonder television executives haven’t been in a hurry to reach a fair agreement with striking writers. They told Congress yesterday that they have a whole lineup of reality shows—no writers needed—ready to fill the airwaves, including “America’s Brownest Walls” and “Are You a Better Surgeon Than a 5th Grader?”

Well actually, those aren’t real shows—thank goodness—and the “producers” appearing before several U.S. House members yesterday weren’t real producers. They were members of the Writers Guild of America who have been on strike since Nov. 5, fighting for a new contract that includes a fair share of revenues from Internet and electronic distribution of material they’ve written.

Comedy writers from “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” kept their joke-writing skills polished in the mock debate between writers and producers that they staged for several Democratic House members.

While the debate drew laughs, the lawmakers said they understood the seriousness of the issues that have driven the writers to the picket lines.

Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) said the new media on which much of the writers’ work now appears, including Internet, DVDs, downloads and iPods

has not changed the right of creative people to be rewarded for their creativity.

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) said:

It’s the writers who make us laugh or make us cry. They are engines that keep shows going and the wizards behind the curtain.

The Capitol Hill comedy fest took place the same day that negotiators for the Writers Guild of America, East (WGAE), Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) began informal talks, the first meetings between the two sides since the producers walked out of negotiations in December.

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