Top guild sources tell me they were “deliberately duped” by the moguls in a backchannel deal to bring the guild back to the bargaining table Sunday. They say the lure was a promise by two Big Media CEOs -- Peter Chernin and Les Moonves -- that, if the writers gave up their DVD residual demands, then the producers would respond by improving the formula on the central sticking issue of Internet downloads for movies and television. My producer sources confirmed to me such a deal was indeed made. In other words, it could have been possible that a settlement might be only days or a week away, with enough progress to induce the writers side to suspend the Monday start of the strike.
The writers say they kept up their end by dropping their DVD demands – a huge concession which later puzzled the WGA membership because it seemed to come out of nowhere and had to be explained by WGA president Patric Verrone without revealing the whole backstory. Why didn’t he? Because the WGA says it was abiding by the “mutual pledge of confidentiality” with AMPTP that, for the first time in all the negotiations, applied to Sunday’s session. Today, sources there decided to spill to me because the writers’ side of the 11th hour talks story has gone untold. The WGA accuses the producers of not delivering on the all-important electronic sell-through issue all day Sunday. And the producers confirm to me that, no, their negotiators did not offer anything on "EST". So, according to guild sources, that’s the real reason the 12:01 AM strike wasn’t averted, and their dropped DVDs demands put back on the table.
As a spitting mad WGA leader put it to me today: “All I can say is, if someone calls me and says, “You do X, and I do Y” and that someone doesn’t do it, then I’ve been lied to and I’ve been played. It’s a complete betrayal. I just don’t know what the studios’ game is.”
So why is this news important? Because now both sides in this writers vs producers fight are further apart than they have ever been, and that’s saying a lot. Both sides believe they have fresh and ample reasons not to go back into negotiations anytime soon. And by soon a worst case scenario of months and months and months. Both sides believe that, after Sunday’s betrayals, they can’t trust the other side enough to even talk about scheduling new AMPTP/WGA negotiations much less try backchannelling. Ironically, as I was being told the WGA’s complaints today, moguls were being briefed on what went down Sunday inside the negotiating room. But are they being told the whole story? About the backchannel deal? Not that I can tell. About the promise that’d been made? Not that I can tell. About not keeping it? Not that I can tell. Instead, I received a warning from inside that camp today not to report the WGA accusations, or name the two moguls, or repeat what went on inside the talks Sunday. But, to stay smack in the middle, I can't do that -- just as I can't favor the other side when reporting about this strike and its issues.
Dictionary definiton of "Good Faith" is what, exactly?
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