Variety coverage of the Writers strike continues to piss me off

I get an email with the day's strike headlines all together. It's bad enough reading the actual stories but if you just skim the headlines, as I do with several subscriptions I have, you'll get an awfully slanted view of the strike.

Headline:

Soap writers cross the picket line

This is also the headline for the entire day's digest.

The text below reads:

At least one WGA scribe on CBS sudser "The Young and the Restless" has decided to cross the picket line to keep his job -- and several others on TV's most-watched soap may be doing the same thing.

So that's one but the headline is plural.

Then when you click through, the story is all innuendo.

Several WGA scribes on sudsers have decided to cross the picket line to keep their jobs.

According to several people with knowledge of the situation, a high-ranking writer-producer on CBS's "The Young and the Restless" has informed the WGA that he plans to go "financial core" -- that is, give up full membership in the guild and withhold the dues spent on political activities in order to continue writing during the strike.

Another source with knowledge of the situation added that two other scribes on "Y&R" have also opted for financial core status, and one other is considering it. A writer on NBC's "Days of Our Lives" may also be considering crossing the picket line.

No names given, no citations, nothing. It's all "may" or "plan" or "considering" or sources say. Bah.

If you go back and read the pdf file about the SAG strike that I linked to a few days ago you'll see that this is exactly what happened during our strike. Advertising Age kept saying "high profile" actors were going to cross the picket line but never mentioned names and it didn't really happen. Yes, Liz Hurley, Tiger Woods and a couple of other sports figures crossed the line but I wouldn't consider any of them high profile actors.

Did I mention how much a Guild Writer makes for streaming video? It's nothing. That's right, no payment at all.

But hey, the governor of California says the writers all have residuals to keep them going so we have nothing to worry about, right?

Back to Variety - what's really interesting about their articles is the comments. If you read a story be sure to read the comment thread.