Criminal Minds: If I were allowed one wish right now it would be that every tv showrunner and writer have a long memory of which tabloids reported the strike fairly and which skewed the facts so much as to make them unrecognizable. It would be my wish that they would never grant an interview to these rags or allow their cast, crew or janitor to talk with them. This strike brought out the best and worst in everybody. There were sides and everyone picked one. As a fan of Criminal Minds I have long been disgusted with the majority of articles written about the show but the following is a classic example of bad journalism!
Once again the NY Times reporter David Carr has gotten it wrong. This is what he had to say about fans:
What about viewers — the real victims of the strike, deprived of new episodes of “Heroes”? There was some keening on the message boards, but mostly, the public shrugged and worked on their “Guitar Hero” chops.
Here is the response by Rob Kutner, Writer for "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart":
To the Editors:
David Carr's otherwise reasonable analysis of the WGA strike results ("Who Won The Writers' Strike?" February 12, 2008) is dead wrong to dismiss TV viewers as doing nothing but "keening on the message boards" and "work[ing] on their “Guitar Hero” chops." Thousands of passionate, dedicated TV fans united behind advocacy groups Fans for the WGA and Fans4Writers.com and took action on multiple levels: organizing food drops to picketers, educating millions on the issues, and deluging the studios with letters and phone calls demanding a fair deal. Multiple sources confirm CBS' Les Moonves got so many calls he hired two new staffers to take them and had his assistant ask the fans, "What do we have to do to make this stop?" As you have reported elsewhere, Moonves ended up a pivotal figure in bringing the strike to resolution in the end.
As the networks learned, TV viewers are not all couch potatoes who will passively watch whatever is heaped in front of them. They demand quality and fairness, and in the end those demands carried the day.
Sincerely,
Rob Kutner
Writer
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart"
