Give Credit to Those Who Do the Work

I read with interest the comments of Sharon Elizabeth Doyle and Robert Eisele (“System Is Still Needed to Protect Screenwriters in Hollywood,” Calendar, July 1), not only because both writers worked for me [when I was producer] on the television series “Cagney & Lacey,” but because of the particular subject that they addressed.

While I respect them as artists and understand their defense of the arbitration system that their guild employs, I cannot help but comment on the irony of their positions, considering the all-but-announced posture of the Writers Guild of America to systematically undermine, if not destroy, the credit of the producer of motion pictures and television.

Eisele writes of avoiding “retribution” but liberally paraphrases old war stories, from days before he was born, about producers “toy[ing]” with credits. What else but retribution would you call the policies of the writers and directors guilds, which have so diminished the producer’s credit through proliferation, as to have made the euphemism “show runner” the operative industry term for the individual who actually produces the show?

If both of these talented folks would work to have their guild, and the industry, encourage only allowing credits--of any sort--for those who really perform the work, then both of them would enjoy a great deal more in the way of credit, and credibility.

BARNEY ROSENZWEIG

Fisher Island, Fla.

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Regarding protecting screenwriters: Hah hah.

The only way to protect the integrity of screenwriters is for the serious screenwriters to separate themselves from the Writers Guild of America, which over the years has skewed itself to protecting the hiring practices attendant to TV shows and what TV represents to be movies, i.e. movies of the week and the like. The Writers Guild of America is an organization that long ago lost its mission to protect screenwriters and now is a convenient subsidiary of the studios and producers, who use it to corral writers into a manageable bunch.

If serious screenwriters were to organize a new guild (not a union; the difference is vast and the subject of another article when it comes to artists) designed to protect screenwriters from the studios and at the same time set up rules for its members, so they could not double-cross each other, then and only then would the integrity of writers--real writers, not hacks--be protected.

Unfortunately, that day will never come.

DORAN WILLIAM CANNON

Screenwriter and author

Hollywood Hills