The rise of reality programming in recent years has left television enthusiasts a little concerned - and rightly so. Television writers in Los Angeles and New York have taken to the streets to demand a bigger slice of the pie - royalties, that is - reaped by studios expanding to new media markets. Say farewell to TV dinners and the traditional sitting-in-your-living-room model of television programming, because Web 2.0 has struck - or, if you prefer, poked - and it's looking to stay.
As Brown students - and journalists - we are naturally in solidarity with the Writers Guild of America. They were unfairly slapped by technology, globalization and interconnected markets. Thomas Friedman may have been right, but the giant media conglomerates could share some of their swag with the creative forces behind their successes. What types of media will constitute that pie in the future, we can only hypothesize - and if the RIAA has been any example, it's uncertain just how easy it will be to collect revenue from future cyber media.
The 12,000 strong Writers Guild of America seems to be winning the publicity war - by some polls, a majority of Americans are behind the writers, not the big studios. And morale on the picket lines seems to reflect that: There's something jovial about picket signs like "They wrong, we write" and the Halloween-esque costume themes of picketers in southern California. And there was, of course, a "Daily Show" writer's Nov. 11 "diary" published in the New York Times, titled, "Picketing but still punchy."
"I hand out brightly colored leaflets to real, engaged New Yorkers, like the tourist from Italy and another tourist, also from Italy," she wrote. "I worry that these people are wasting precious vacation time that could be better spent not understanding bagels or a Broadway show." Fewer words have ever rang so clear.
Sure, some may say that we have better things to do with our time - read those first few chapters of Faulkner, memorize that Arabic vocabulary or finish those internship applications.
But what are we to do when "The Colbert Report" - some students' main news source after The Herald - is cut off? And wait - this strike means we might not learn how J.D. handles raising his new son in this season of "Scrubs?" How will the Dwight-Andy-Angela love triangle play out on "The Office?"
TV Guide has been updating an online guide called, "How Long Before Your Shows Go Dark," and it's a brutal reminder of what's to come. For now, there are zero episodes of "The Office" left, one episode of "Heroes" and, thankfully, only five remaining episodes of "Gossip Girl." "The Colbert Report" and "The Daily Show" are off the air. We may have to actually crack open the Economist. Or even our textbooks.
Will this carry over to next season? Talks that were expected to resume this week have only led to a standstill. It's been a long three weeks and counting, and a Dwight-free winter break may seem even longer and lonelier than usual.
