‘Stop portraying writers as rich’
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Jim Earl is very frustrated. He says the media keeps giving out the impression that TV writers get $200,000 a year. ‘I don’t make anywhere near that,’ he says. (He won’t say how much he makes, but says it’s less than that.)
The 48-year-old Echo Park resident has been a writer on Fox’s ‘Talk Show With Spike Feresten’ for the show’s second season. It’s been his steadiest gig since he left Manhattan for Los Angeles about three years ago. ‘I was a writer on ‘The Daily Show’ and I was making about $100,000,’ he says. ‘I was making a good living, but I couldn’t afford to live in New York on that salary. So I came here.’
He looks hopeful but yet a bit weary as he walked a picket line today, wearing a black WGA ‘Comedy Writer’ shirt. Before he landed the late-night show, he had a small radio show, did some stand-up, and also did some freelance writing work. He and his wife live in an apartment -- ‘I can’t yet afford to buy anything.’
Like many writers, he says he is somewhat financially prepared. ‘I’ve been saving money for awhile and I will probably be OK until February. But I think it’s going to be hard. I can’t go back to stand-up, because that kind of work is pretty hard to get these days. The market’s not good. But if we don’t stick to our guns, it will be the end of our union.’
Not far away, chalk markings were still visible in front of a Sunset-Gower Studios parking garage driveway where a picketer was struck and injured Monday by a driver entering the lot. There were some tensions between picketers and people trying to get to work, but some employees, such as personal assistants, took a different approach and brought the strikers cookies and water.
-- Greg Braxton
