With the latest news that negotiations between striking writers and film studios will recommence on Nov. 26 even while the strike continues, it's worth turning our attention to the shallow ways the media have covered and portrayed the strike so far. Looking at the news media coverage of the Writer's Guild of America strike, one would hardly believe that the strike have been going on for nearly two weeks already. Indeed, the media have played a strong role in obscuring the intensity of the strikers' demands and the depth of their overall support and has instead chosen to focus purely on the negative impacts of the strike on viewers.Even before the strike began, as the media hurriedly attempted to show last-ditch attempts at settlement, already the news focused heavily on the direct impacts of the strike on the imperiled future of television shows. Experts offered prognoses on which shows would most likely be contested. The most heavily debated issue of the day was whether or not the new season of 24 would be aired and what would happen to Lost. However, there was some minimal attempt to study the substantive merits of the strike.

Since the strike began, the mainstream media coverage has been utterly atrocious. Using CNN.com as a typical example, we have "Get ready for Reruns: Writers hit the picket lines" (Nov. 5), "Producers: We've hunkered down for a long one" (Nov. 6), "'Housewives,' 'Office' stopped by strike" (Nov. 7), "'K-Ville', '24' latest affected by strike" (Nov. 8) and "With scripted TV running dry, what's left to be shown" (Nov. 9). Also reported was, "What will you do without TV," and the utterly inane "What will awards show hosts say without writers." All of these stories focused nearly exclusively on the negative effects of the strike on viewers, producers and actors.

In contrast, only a single article appeared on CNN.com in the same time period that substantively looked at the demands of writers: "Changing media landscape takes center stage in strike" (Nov. 8). While the existence of this article is commendable, about half of its focus was on the potential for the strike to produce a future run of shoddy reality television and other lowest-common-denominator shows.

Maybe the lack of quality investigation of the strike is due to the fact that CNN cannot find anyone who disputes the merits of the strikers' position. Indeed, it seems self-evident that writers should receive money whenever their content is streamed from a network's Web site and runs with ads. Additionally, it seems clear that webisodes and other exclusively digital content should not be stolen away writers. While many complain about the nature of the strike itself-there are always those who can argue against strikes in general-few hold the Writer's Guild Association at fault.

Indeed, the broad level of support for strikers is quite high, despite media reports. What one would not realize from following CNN news stories is the quantity of actors and directors that have gone to the picket lines in support of the writers' cause. The entire cast of Grey's Anatomy, for instance, is supporting the strike, and late-night TV host David Letterman is paying his staff out-of-pocket for the rest of the year while the strike continues. Something profound is happening when we see such a union between all levels of production.

I urge you to seriously look into the merits of the strike and not merely be fooled by mainstream headlines into believing it is evil. I recommend in particular reading The Huffington Post Web site for one of the most substantive discussions on the topic. This site hosts blogs of striking writers as well as some writers and directors against the strike and feature, some of the most in-depth reporting on the topic. It's a shame the media has so obscured the beginnings of a truly broad discussion about the nature of residual pay and contracting that could spill beyond the screen and impact other professionals such as journalists or even the actors or directors themselves.