Speaking of the writers strike, this article contains a good example either of a newspaper trying to game public perception, or just really shitty writing.
The DGA spent more than a year and nearly $2 million researching the future of online entertainment with the help of outside consultants. In a meeting with WGA leaders last week, DGA officials shared their findings, which buttress studio arguments that Web business is still in the formative stage, according to people familiar with the research.
The key bit there is the remark that the DGA findings “buttress studio arguments that Web business is still in the formative stage”. It’s key because (as mentioned above), it’s the bit that’s either the reporter trying to improperly skew the reader’s understanding of the issues, or simply the reporters not being very good writers.
If indeed what the findings show is that “Web business is still in the formative stage”, the reality is that it doesn’t matter. Because that isn’t the point. The point is that the writers want to make sure they get their fair share of the revenue — whether such revenue exists today or not.
In other words: To make a deal guaranteeing that writers get their fair share when their work is rerun online, the matter of whether or not “Web business is still in the formative stage” is irrelevant. What matters is the two sides agreeing that the writers should get their cut, and what that cut should be.
Meaning: One possibility with the above quote is that the reporters are trying to make it seem as if the DGA findings support everything the studio has been saying or doing. But, of course, we don’t know if that’s what the findings actually say.
All we know from this article is that the findings reportedly support the idea “that Web business is still in the formative stage”. As explained above: So what?
The other possibility (and I’m mentioning this mainly just to cover my own ass here) is that the reporters were not at all trying to game the reader’s perception of the issues involved in the strike, but rather just had no clue how to write that paragraph in a way that didn’t give such an impression.
Or, I suppose there’s a third possibility: The reporters themselves don’t understand the distinction between the relevant issue and the irrelevant issue (as outlined above), and so just didn’t know any better.
That option, however, isn’t any more reassuring than the others.
