Since last weekend there has been a lot of talk about a possible end to the on-going WGA strike against the AMPTP. While it will certainly be great to get everyone back to work, I wonder if the writer’s new found interest in New Media will be one of the first casualties of any agreement. I would hate to see writers slip back into the “same old, same old” world that existed before the strike. Writers have so much to gain from new media and abandoning it now will stunt their ability to take control of their own careers and creativity and allow the producers to maintain much the same power they had before the strike.

I would hate to see writers slip back into the “same old, same old” world that existed before the strike.

New media matters to writers, because:

• It seems unlikely that producers will ever agree to a plan which allows the majority of profits to come to the creators of television and movies. New Media understands that those directly involved in the creation of media both deserve and require the bulk of the rewards from their creations.
  
• Writers gain the freedom to engage directly with their audience without any pre-filtering such as occurs with network television and mainstream films.
  
• Writers gain the ability to engage viewers and listeners around the world and not artificially limited by current distribution agreements
  
• Writer take their rightful place as the founding creative of their works, without which no subsequent product could be produced. Writers are not necessary evils, they are the fountain from which media products flow

The end of the WGA strike does not mean the end of New Media. In fact, the New Media genii is out of the bottle and no amount of wishful thinking will stuff it back in. The entertainment world is changing and will continues to do so with, or without, you. If you don’t seize the opportunities that New Media provides, I can guarantee you that someone else will.