Three or four anecdotes/observations stand out in Michael Ceiply‘s 1.19 N.Y. Times piece about Writers Guild president Patric Verrone and his lieutenant David Young, and altogether they indicate that as far as these two and the WGA strike siutation is concerned, particularly in the wake of the just-announced Directors Guild deal, the name of the game is “move it or lose it.”
WGA president Patric Verrone
Verrone and Young are described as as currently “stuck deliberating a question that may bode ill for both: Is their writers√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢ rebellion over?” They are called an “odd couple, not invested in the clubby ways of show business.” Their outsider status is analogized to that of David Putnam, the British producer who ran Columbia for a while before pissing off the big wheels and getting whacked as a result. The piece says they may be sent “quickly back [into] the shadows if they fail at what has usually been an insiders√ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨√¢‚Äû¬¢ game.”
In other words, they’re being seen as weakened if not on the ropes. Is there another way of reading this article?
