How the WGA is Winning the Message War

A couple of weeks before the WGA strike started, Huffington Post writer Robert J. Elisberg predicted how the public relations part of the strike would go:

3. Both sides will go to the press. Writers will point out that the studios make ungodly profits and screw everyone in sight. Studios will point out how many people will be laid off if writers strike against studios that make ungodly profits and screw everyone in sight.

5. The press will side with the studios. Three reasons. A) They don't have a clue who any of the writers are. B) Studio execs will actually call the press and talk about themselves. Writers won't call the press because they're pissed off at being ignored by them all the time. And C) No reason for the press to tick off an executive because, who knows, they might want to pitch one of their own screenplays to them later.

That the press would side with the studios was a reasonable expectation - not just because reporters might want to pitch screenplays but because studios are more significant advertisers than middle-class writers, not to mention that some news outlets and studios are owned by the same conglomerates. A cursory look at media coverage of strikes in recent decades would also underline the expectation that it would favor the employers in this case.

As reasonable as that prediction was, it has not proven true. In fact, it is generally considered that the opposite is true. NPR recently reported on a study finding that 63% of people support the writers as compared with 4% supporting the studios. While the WGA strike is unusual in many ways, the public relations victories of these striking workers bear thinking about.

Reporting on the subject emphasizes the writers' use of the internet in providing information and eliciting support, and rightly so. Starting before the strike, writers set up the framework they continue to use to get their message out. In doing this, they got the help of Dante Atkins, known at Daily Kos as hekebolos. Dante explains that, as an online outreach advisor, he helped organize:

four separate subcommittees that reported directly to the communications committee: 1) rapid response; 2) messaging; 3) video; and 4) blog.

Basically, I applied lessons learned from campaign media trainings, because the objective is similar--it's just that instead of looking for votes, you're looking for popular support and media coverage that will help apply pressure to your opponent in the labor dispute to further your chance of long-term success.

They worked to develop memorable talking points, make sure that involved people, especially rapid responders, were completely familiar with those, and then disseminate them. Without that effective and disciplined messaging, all the dissemination in the world wouldn't help, but a great message doesn't help if only a few people hear it.

The writers' success at making their case online has a few key components. They've made dozens of YouTube videos, several of which have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times. There are videos in which writers on the picket line explain why they're picketing, videos in which TV stars explain why they're in solidarity with the striking workers, videos that lay out the issues prompting the strike, and even a rap. (Ok, it's not surprising someone would do a rap. What's surprising is that it's watchable.)  They're short enough that even people with short attention spans can sit through them, they make liberal use of the natural advantages of having comedy writers on strike and beautiful actors picketing with them, and they relentlessly inform viewers on the issues. In the NPR story linked above, writers tell about emailing links to YouTube videos to friends and family so that they would be armed when they talk to people less sympathetic to the strike.

Then there are the blogs. From wannabetvwriter to Strike Points to LateShowWritersOnStrike, WGA members are writing - in support of their strike. But United Hollywood is the most significant of them. Its traffic has topped out at nearly 70,000 visits in a day and is averaging about 20,000. For context, that's about what MyDD gets. And it merits the traffic. In the run-up to the strike, it provided negotiation updates. They keep track of rumors and shoot them down when possible. They respond directly to idiocy from the AMPTP. They run statements of solidarity from other workers in the entertainment industry. They announce special events and schedule changes. They track press coverage.

One thing that's crucial about United Hollywood in particular is its scope. If I were a WGA member, it would be a source of encouragement and information. As a blogger, it offers me everything I would need to post on the strike every day if I were so inclined. It's on-the-ground reports, rapid response, action items, and comprehensive linking all rolled into one. If I weren't sure how I felt about the strike and found that site, it would make a complete case for the writers.

United Hollywood aims as pretty much everyone, but the writers have also paid attention to market segmentation. As the existence of a Late Show Writers blog suggests, many writers with significant followings are mobilizing their fans. Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Firefly, and Angel, for instance, has posted consistently to a fan site, including to help organize a fan action in which people send pencils to media moguls to show how much support the strikers have. Other groups, like Battlestar Galactica fans or friends of the LGBT community have joined pickets on designated days, so that the strike draws on existing communities and gives fans of specific shows the opportunity to meet in solidarity with each other and the writers of their favorites.

These and other strategies have enabled the writers to make their case to the broadest possible public, and through the course of the strike even coverage from parts of the traditional media has shifted from a snide tone to a more sympathetic one. Of course, television and movie writers have significant advantages in messaging. For one thing - duh - they write for a living. Their blogs are going to be good. They include many people who will come across well on video. It also hasn't hurt them that the AMPTP has done such a pitiful job at messaging, resorting to newspaper ads, about which, as one United Hollywood writer says,

I knew it was a good sign when the AMPTP resorted to buying full-page newspaper ads last week. Because you know who has to buy full-page newspaper ads? People who have grounded tankers spilling crude into a bay. People who have stepped in it. Even the font looked guilty. We're in a negotiation over the digital future, and they take out a newspaper ad?

So this is a best-case scenario, but it didn't have to be. As Dante Atkins noted,

it helps that the WGA strike isn't just political; if "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" go off the air, it obviously creates a lot more havoc among the general populace than it does if Houston sanitation workers don't get a living wage.  That's just one of the vagueries of our media-based democracy.

That havoc could cut either way - it means that the public relations battle is a crucial one, because a larger than usual number of people were going to have an opinion about this strike than typically do. Loss of public sympathy would therefore have be catastrophic to the writers. Loss of public sympathy won't hurt the studios as quickly as it would have hurt the writers, since they have billions of dollars to cushion them, but neither will it help.