BREAKING: CBS News Latest Victim Of The Writers Strike..Poor Katie
Will Katie join them?
CBS News writers, producers and editors voted to authorize their labor union to call a strike after working without a contract for two years.
About 81 percent of the nearly 300 CBS members of the Writers Guild of America voted to authorize the strike, the union said in a statement. The union represents 500 CBS employees in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington D.C.
“That couldn’t come at a worse time,”
A strike by news writers puts additional pressure on New York-based CBS, whose “Evening News with Katie Couric” lags behind ABC and NBC in ratings. ABC writers work under a separate WGA contract and those at NBC belong to the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians, or NABET.
“That couldn’t come at a worse time,” said Brad Adgate, research director at Horizon Media, an advertising agency in New York. “Katie Couric has been struggling. CBS is in last place in the evening news. It’s in last place in the early morning. This isn’t going to help.”
More here
“CBS Evening News With Katie Couric,” which has three news writers and several graphic artists who work under the WGA contract, would also be affected. Couric does not belong to the WGA, but she is a member of the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. Various unions — including the WGA, AFTRA and the National Assn. of Broadcast Employees and Technicians — represent different parts of the TV news business, which also employs many nonunion staffers.
In the current Hollywood writer walkout, AFTRA has instructed its members not to do the work that is usually done by members of the WGA. If the CBS news employees strike, Couric could continue editing her own copy, as she does currently, but would not be able to write more of the nightly broadcast. Much of the additional work would fall to the program’s executive producer, Rick Kaplan, and his senior staff.
November 20, 2007 - 06:48 AM on November 20th, 2007
Rick Kaplan is a Clintonista. Watch for CBS News to lurch even FARTHER left.
Remember Kaplan was the joker who ran CNN News during the Clinton years and made sure the news was as fawning as possible on Bubba and the Hildebeast.
November 20, 2007 - 06:50 AM on November 20th, 2007
I wonder if he an Katie will share the writing duties?
November 20, 2007 - 07:13 AM on November 20th, 2007
2, knowing that coward, Kaplan, he’ll blame Katie for the crap put out.
Oh, one other thing about Kaplan, remember Andrea Rooney, daughter of Andy Rooney? When she had a gig at ABC and said she wanted to bring some Conservative balance to ABC news, it was Kaplan who fired her.
November 20, 2007 - 05:23 PM on November 20th, 2007
Poor perky Katie Couric. She sold her soul to the Leftist Devil for success and now she is very close to going down with the ship.
November 22, 2007 - 11:09 AM on November 22nd, 2007
Nobody watches her anyway, so what difference will it make?
I think CBS will be more hurt with The Today Show scripting.
November 22, 2007 - 11:11 AM on November 22nd, 2007
Oh, wait. Today Show is NBC. Well, whatever CBS’s morning show is called then.
November 23, 2007 - 03:13 PM on November 23rd, 2007
5,6, Tofu, stop smoking grass. It is deteriorating what little thinking you had.
November 24, 2007 - 05:21 AM on November 24th, 2007
7-