Striking writers try to appeal to Wall Street

By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - A second week of picketing in Manhattan resumed Tuesday with striking film and TV writers bringing the battle to Wall Street, where they said media moguls were bragging about their fiscal health while claiming poverty at the bargaining table.

After taking Monday off to plot strategy, more than 100 members of the east coast arm of the Writers Guild of America and other unions set up picket lines at Battery Park at the tip of Manhattan and sent leafleters to locations around the financial district at Wall Street.

"We have to take it to the heart" of the financial center, WGA East president Michael Winship said. "It's the only way we're going to win."

It isn't easy, though. Security concerns after September 11 made it impossible for the union to get a site closer to the New York Stock Exchange. The picketers also were not allowed to bring their placards the three-block walk or so to the financial district.

Wall Street types seemed unwilling to listen to the unions' pitch: the conglomerates have boasted of new media earnings of $700 million in 2006 -- and the writers would like to see some of that.

Meanwhile, a number of WGAE members were taking a page from the West Coast writers -- most notably the "Office" staff who released a video through UnitedHollywood.com early in the strike -- and were busy creating videos that mixed humor and advocacy. Winship said a meeting Monday was held with a number of comedy show writers, who agreed to work on videos that would be posted on the WGAE site and elsewhere around the Web arguing their case.

At least two groups of writers were doing videos at Battery Park, and union officials said more were shooting all over Manhattan.

One of those groups was the writing staff of "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart," who spent the morning creating a mock video newscast with the picket line as a backdrop. It featured "Daily Show" writer Jason Ross sitting at a coffee table, discussing the strike along with other writers doing brief bits elsewhere. Some of the scenes had to be moved away from the strike line because of loud jackhammering that was going on nearby.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter