Thank God for the Mainstream Press

Craig Mazin eviscerates a magnificently bad article on the current Writer's Guild/Studio negotiations from, of all places, the New York Times. The stuff in there -- "lead writer" and "junior writer", that "most screenwriters" get an upfront payment of $1 million dollars per screenplay (!!!!) ...

Boggling. For those of you not in the industry, this is roughly the equivalent of saying "Fees for teeth cleaning are split between the lead dentist and a secondary dental technician known as the Adjuct Toothologist, They are usually paid an upfront fee of warp drive crystals and a bed of golden vaginas. Then, ponies fight werewolves to determine residuals as proscribed by the ancient, inscrutable druid ways."

I am not exaggerating for effect. The Times article is precisely that stupid.

This goes into the file, by the way, for the next time I get into (another) discussion with a journalist about how the high fact-checking and editorial standards of the mainstream press are all that's keeping us from sinking into a morass of rumors and spin. It's not that I reject the mainstream press, a some people do. I just don't much care for anyone's air of infallibility. And that "air of infallibility" is the attitude carried by so many journalistic establishments* without, frankly, any decent justification whatsoever. It is often a selling point, despite cries of self-modesty.

* (EDIT: professional journalist Flynn rightfully points out in the comments I overgeneralized here in the original post, lumping in all journalists with those specifically aggrieved by the challenge to their authority and the professional establishment that to a great degree depends for their business model that you only trust X sources of information. He's right, and I apologize for the thoughtlessness.)

Many Dirty Filthy Bloggers are assholes with attitudes. But sometimes we're experts in highly specialized fields, and there's nothing constructive in getting huffy and defensive about one's career as a generalist being threatened.

(Further Note: "bed of golden vaginas" tm Warren Ellis -- in a post about me, of all things)