Welcome to Hard Times

My girlfriend, an unemployed television producer-director, woke up this morning confident that she’d weather the current employment situation. But 15 minutes later, after she read your article, she was so depressed and scared she wouldn’t even talk to me.

Sure the economy is in the dumper, and the entertainment business is not as recession-proof as we once thought, but why concentrate on this? Won’t it only fuel the paranoia and put us deeper in the hole?

Don’t get me wrong. Your article was informative, and we need to know what’s going on, but surely it’s not as bad as you make it sound. I guarantee there must be a few people out there who still have jobs. Why not write about them?

Even in these tough times you can still find a success story. You just have to look a little harder, but they’re out there. I know because I’m one of them. I just signed my first deal to produce a made-for-television movie.

HOWARD MEIBACH

Los Angeles