Writers' strike: Mr. Burns speaks

Honestly, could the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers have found a worse spokesman than Nick Counter (the guy in the interview chair at left)?

Read this Q-and-A with James Hibberd, in which Hibberd basically catches him in a lie — two weeks ago the archly named Counter had said he would negotiate regardless of a strike, but as he admits to Hibberd, the AMPTP broke off talks Sunday night with the Writers Guild because someone read on the Internet that the East Coast writers had called a strike (because it was after midnight in New York).

Instead of admitting he'd contradicted himself, Counter blames the writers for starting the strike — technically they honored the preannounced strike deadline — and calls them "stupid."

Is this the person that Les Moonves of CBS, one of the so-called "cooler heads" on that side of the table, really wants representing the AMPTP in the press? Moonves could do a better job by himself. I can't imagine anyone reading Hibberd's article is going to believe Counter's claim that the producers really, sincerely were trying to hammer out an 11th-hour agreement with the Writers Guild and avert a strike.

As one longtime Guild member told me recently, "I think the studios and networks will replace Nick Counter before this is all over and realize they need someone who lives in this century. The AMPTP has forgotten one of the first lessons every human being is taught as a child: how to share."

Anyway, whether it's a short strike or not, we'll be updating the Ticker with stories like that one, and blog items we find from striking WGA members. Who knows, maybe we'll even hear from a producer or two who would just as soon that Nick Counter wasn't speaking for them.

(Below: WGA prez Patric Verrone addresses the troops outside the Fox lot Tuesday morning. That's David Crane of "Friends" at right.)

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