AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

There is tons of “ink” (digital, too) on the WGA strike against studios and networks. This overview, published on p. 1 of today’s LA Times, seems to include good reporting and a useful timeline.

Living-room meetings cut through animosity in writers walkout.

By Richard Verrier and Claudia Eller, Los Angeles Times

Studio executives and leaders of the Writers Guild of America were barely on speaking terms a month ago when John Bowman took matters into his own hands.

The head of the guild’s negotiating committee, a onetime writer on “Saturday Night Live,” Bowman asked a talent agent friend to arrange a private meeting with adversaries in Hollywood’s languishing labor talks.

Days later, on Jan. 10, Bowman found himself in the living room of Peter Chernin’s Santa Monica home, sipping Scotch with the News Corp. president and two of his allies — Warner Bros. Chairman Barry Meyer and CBS Corp. Chief Executive Leslie Moonves.…read on…