Is Variety‘s Dave McNary a Get Out “woker”? Look below and consider how he structured his lede for this morning’s story about the WGA nominations. Do you detect a very slight note of favoritism in his decision to state that Jordan Peele‘s script has nabbed a Best Original Screenplay nom “along with” four others? Just a teeny-weeny bit of a “yay, team” attitude?

Imagine, for example, if McNary had written “Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani’s The Big Sick has landed a Writers Guild of America nomination for top original screenplay, along with Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor’s The Shape of Water, Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Steven Rogers for I, Tonya.”

Or, better yet, imagine a lede that reads “Steven Rogers‘ I, Tonya has landed a Writers Guild of America nomination for top original screenplay, along with Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird, Guillermo del Toro and Vanessa Taylor’s The Shape of Water, Jordan Peele’s Get Out and Emily Gordon and Kumail Nanjiani’s The Big Sick.”

On second thought don’t imagine alternate ledes because they never would’ve happened.

If you’re going to indicate special approval for a nominee by listing it first and foremost among a group of five, you have to first consider the political climate, and it seems to me that not only McNary but Variety editors are “woke.”

How can McNary and Variety lose by appearing to give Get Out a little back-pat? They can’t. Who’s gonna rant about this except me and maybe one or two others? But they could conceivably offend other wokers if they were to indicate they’re in the tank for I, Tonya, Lady Bird, The Big Sick or The Shape of Water. Right now “woke” is a desirable badge to wear in progressive circles, and you can’t earn points in this regard by indicating a special friendship with any of the other four.