letter writing campaign to support WGA

POSTED BY: embers
UPDATED: Saturday, November 10, 2007 01:57
VIEWED: 2324
PAGE 1 of 1

EMBERS

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 2:15 AM

Most of us have done postcard/writing campaigns before, usually to save our show...
well this time we could be saving the writers' a long strike.
I suggest writing postcards to the following companies, the biggest spenders for television advertising and tell them that the TV viewers believe that the studio executives are causing a problem and not negotiating in good faith. The studio execs are wasting their advertising dollars on reruns and 'reality' shows instead of keeping great scripted television on the air!

General Motors Corporation
P.O. Box 33170
Detroit, MI 48232-5170

Procter & Gamble*
One Procter & Gamble Plaza
Cincinnati, OH 45202

Johnson & Johnson
1 Johnson & Johnson Plaza
New Brunswick, NJ 08933

Ford Motor Company
1 American Rd.
Dearborn, MI 48126-2798

Pfizer, Inc.
182 Tabor Road
Morris Plains, NJ 07950

Pepsi Cola*
700 Anderson Hill Road
Purchase, NY 10577-1401

AOL Time Warner
5 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10019-6908

Walt Disney Corporation
500 S. Buena Vista St.,
Burbank, CA 91521

Altria Group
120 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10017

AT&T Corp
2 Avenue of the Americans
New York, N.Y. 10013-2412

General Mills
1 General Mills Blvd.
Minneapolis, MN 55426

These are all companies that spend between $100-800 million dollars a year in advertising in the hopes that we will be watching... so let's make it clear what we want to see!

CYBERSNARK

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 3:27 AM

Over on ExIsle, we're discussing the logistics of a pencil-sending campaign (inspired by Farscape's "Crackers Matter" campaign, and Jericho's "Nuts to CBS").

There are a few kinks still to be worked out (like whether this kind of high-publicity campaign would even work in this case), but I'll post more on that as it develops.

-----
We applied the cortical electrodes but were unable to get a neural reaction from either patient.

EMBERS

Wednesday, November 7, 2007 7:18 AM

I'm not sure what pencils would mean to the advertisers (but I do believe they would understand postcards, letters, email, and phone calls),
OTOH maybe pencils would work with AMPTP
http://www.amptp.org/cgi-bin/afp/afp.cgi?process
AMPTP is the association of producers who walked away from the bargaining table because they think they can starve the writers into submission.

AMPTP thinks that the viewers are so stupid that we don't realize they are making a lot of money off the advertising attached to their 'free' downloads online.

AMPTP can be emailed here:
http://www.amptp.org/cgi-bin/afp/afp.cgi?process
or phoned at:
818 995 3600

or you can write to them here:

AMPTP
15503 Ventura Blvd
Encino, CA 91436

now maybe THEY would get the irony of the pencils!

http://community.livejournal.com/wga_supporters/3089.html

EMBERS

Friday, November 9, 2007 7:18 AM

Brian K. Vaughan, who is writing the Faith arc of the Buffy season 8 comics, posted at his MySpace:
http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=375072
26&blogID=326213329&Mytoken=F790AD39-9226-4E95-96A3BA305D83688A16223118
encouraging us to write to the association of producers who are the ones who forced the writers to strike:

Quote:
If the spirit moves you, and you'd like to extend your support, you can contact the AMPTP here:
http://www.amptp.org/contactus.html

You can either send an e-mail via their online form (quick and easy!), send a letter to the mailing address on the page to the attn of AMPTP president, Nick Counter (nothing has the knives-out poetry of angry letters stacked on a desk!), or call the phone number on the page and leave a polite message with Nick Counter's assistant (depending on how concerned you are about the whole thing). It doesn't have to be long. It can be something like this:

Dear Mr. Counter,

I am a television viewer and movie-goer. It is the job of your organization to make and keep me happy so that I continue to go out and buy things, thereby keeping your advertisers happy and those in your industry gainfully employed (and also happy). What would make me happiest at the moment would be if you treat the WGA fairly and give the writers what they want and deserve to successfully end this strike. The entertainment industry needs its writers. It also needs its audience. The longer we have to sit through re-runs, the less likely we'll be to keep coming back - especially when we have On Demand cable and Netflix and YouTube to keep us warm. I'm writing this note, as one of the many viewers you are trying to court, to express my support for the writers. Thank you.

Sincerely,
(your name here)

Or something like that. In fact, feel free to steal that and alter it for your own purposes. Smile Feel free to forward this e-mail to anyone you think might be interested, too, as there is power in numbers. Post the links I've included in your blogs, on your networking sites, or on any relevant message boards you visit. I would love the writers to know that it isn't just fellow union members who support what they do, but the average viewers across the country who enjoy the stories they tell, and want to keep them coming. Thank you!

http://community.livejournal.com/wga_supporters/3089.html

JONGSSTRAW

Friday, November 9, 2007 1:35 PM

With all due respect to this thread...you've got to be kidding...right?

Have you forgotten that these "writers" are the ones responsible for the vile filth & mindless drivel that is shown on TV?

I should support them? They should all starve before I would give a rat's patoot.

ORPHEUS

Friday, November 9, 2007 1:46 PM

Or, if people are looking for something a little simpler, there's always this online petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/WGA/petition.html

The petition went up last night, and already has over 10,000 signatures.

I support the strike 100%, even though I still plan on buying DVDs before the strike ends.

____________________

Podcasting from film students to film fans everywhere
Check us out at Http://www.freewebs.com/frontrowcenter

EMBERS

Friday, November 9, 2007 3:47 PM

why are you a Firefly fan if you think all TV writing is filth and mindless drivel?????
really, I'm curious...because the mind boggles!

These are the people who wrote the episodes of Firefly we love, these people work really hard and I respect them and care about them (and I've met a lot of them at conventions).

http://community.livejournal.com/wga_supporters/3089.html

JONGSSTRAW

Friday, November 9, 2007 4:48 PM

Sorry...didn't mean to boggle your mind so, but I never said "all TV".

EMBERS

Saturday, November 10, 2007 1:57 AM

Sorry jonsstraw, but when you said:

Quote:
Originally posted by Jongsstraw:

I should support them? They should all starve before I would give a rat's patoot.

I naturally you meant Joss Whedon, Tim Minear, Jane Espenson, and other beloved writers for Buffy, Angel, and Firefly who are right now out on picket lines trying to make sure they get a fair contract so that they can continue to work.

Either all the writers get a fair deal or none of them do...

Personally I'm more offending by the crap they put on TV that doesn't have writers: all the 'reality' shows are way more disgusting than any scripted show I've ever seen.

http://community.livejournal.com/wga_supporters/3089.html