From United Hollywood:
Send Pencils to Support the Writers! A Buck a Box!
Here's what's being done by fans for the WGA strike: "Now is the time to save ALL our shows. MAIL PENCILS pencils to the AMPTP and to any studios whose shows you enjoy...
Maybe we can help the studios see just how much support the WGA has. And maybe, just maybe, we can give them a graceful way out (not because they're buckling under the writers' demands, but because they care so much about their audience. Us. And isn't that supposed to be their job?"
-- Nikki Finke, 11/12/07
Okay, what is Pencils2MediaMoguls?We’re asking people to use our site to buy pencils to send to the six media moguls who run the six corporate conglomerates.
Why pencils?
A lot of different fan sites were suggesting that people send pencils to networks and studios. United Hollywood and Strike Points met with some of the television showrunners, and together we decided to follow the fans’ lead.
Pencils have become the symbol of our cause: We are putting them down until we get a fair deal.
Symbolism, whatever. Let’s face it -- isn’t this kind of a waste of pencils?
We were worried about that too, so we found a vendor who makes environmentally sensitive product: California Republic Stationers. Their pencils are made from sustainably harvested wood, which means they don’t deforest.
We’ll also send the media moguls suggestions about where they can donate the pencils to non-profits that teach kids how to write. After all, the CEOs aren’t writers. It’s not like they can use them.
What happens to the money from the pencils?
Anything we have left over from our costs will go into the Union Solidarity Fund, which was created to help non-WGA members affected by the strike.
So who are these “media moguls”?
They are the six men who run the multi-media conglomerates, the companies that control almost everything you see on tv or in the movies. These individual CEOs have the power and influence to make a fair deal and end the strike, if they choose.
Leslie Moonves, President, CEO
CBS Corporation
51 West 52nd Street
New York, NY 10019
www.cbscorporation.com
Jeffrey Immelt, CEO
General Electric (NBC/Universal)
100 Universal City Plaza
Universal City, CA 91608
www.nbcuni.com
Rupert Murdoch, Chairman, CEO
News Corporation (Fox)
1211 Avenue of the Americas
8th floor
New York, NY 10036
www.newscorp.com
Jeffrey L. Bewkes, President, COO
Time Warner Inc. (Warner Brothers)
1 Time Warner Center
New York, NY 10019
www.timewarner.com
Robert Iger, President, CEO
Walt Disney Company
500 South Buena Vista Street
Burbank, CA 91521
corporate.disney.go.com
Sumner Redstone, Chairman
Viacom
1515 Broadway
New York, NY 10036
www.viacom.com
Why can’t I just buy some pencils and mail them myself?
You can! We just wanted to take our fans' great idea and make it easier. We’re taking a leaf from the Jericho campaign in which fans contracted with one vendor who could pool all their purchases together. That way, instead of individual bags of nuts, fans sent truckloads of nuts to CBS.
We’ve contracted with a single vendor to buy all the pencils for the same reason. We can deliver all of them in bulk, a truckload at a time, so the impact will be (we hope) greater.
You can mail pencils yourself if you want to, but joining together seems to have a better chance of getting noticed. It’s worked in the past.
If you do decide to mail pencils yourself, just make sure they’re not sharpened. And please be polite. (We know how hard that is. Trust us.)
How come it’s a buck a box?
That price covers purchase and delivery of 12 pencils. (They’ll probably be packed by pallets instead of in individual boxes.)
And did we mention the “sustainably forested” thing?
All right, responsible pencils, I get it. But in the end, what are you trying to accomplish here?
We want the media moguls to start negotiating in good faith. We want the strike to end with a fair deal for both sides.
If we get a fair deal, it helps the actors, the directors, and the below-the-line crew members. Their deals are directly tied to ours.
Click (top right) to send a message to the moguls: It’s time to make a fair deal. We’re all on the same page.
2 comments:
Done Man. Thanks for posting about this. Sent 5 dozen. Right on.
Hello, I'm one of the "nutty" Jericho fans - N2N2 on the CBS board. The feedback we got about that campaign was that the 40,000 pounds of nuts got their attention as well as the media attention, but it was our messages that made them go back and take another look at the numbers. They said we were "Polite, Persistant and Passionate." Polite seemed to be very important, so let us remember our "please and thank yous." But what seem to be more imporant to them was our Passion. They said that what we wrote about why we watched Jericho told them that "we really got it." As someone said, "we're not a bunch of kids in tin foil hats." So sending the pencils will get their attention, but 50,000 email plus postcards, letters, faxes, etc. all passionately telling them what you like about your show is not a bad idea either.
I just bought my own 100 pencils and am sitting here printing clear file folder labels and sticking them to the pencils with my message. Jericho Fans Support the Writers. We want quality Entertainment.
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