JOKING AROUND

Allan Burns decries the shallowness of “gang writing” on the typical situation comedy (“The Medium Is the Messengers,” by Brian Lowry, April 13). He is mistaken. It isn’t writing. It’s competition joke-pitching.

I spent one harrowing season on the staff of the short-lived and unmissed ABC sitcom “Baby Talk” and was the only person on staff who’d ever published a word. Most staffers were former stand-up comedians or actors. Is it any wonder that character development gets lost in the shuffle when your delivery of a joke around the writers’ table counts for as much as or more than what you put on the page?

CHRIS WESTPHAL

Ojai