Writers’ Assistants Aren’t Gofers, They’re Part of a Creative Team

Steve Tatham does a disservice to all writers’ assistants when he indicates that all they do is fetch the producers’ coffee. (“A TV Crisis Worthy of the Newest Batch of Sitcoms,” Counterpunch, Nov. 9).

Writers’ assistants serve a vital function in the production of sitcoms. So vital a function that there have been attempts to unionize them as part of the Writers Guild of America. I am all for that attempt, should it be resurrected.

A writers’ assistant (yes, that’s a plural possessive of the word “writer”) spends the entire day with the staff of writers as they rewrite each draft of what was submitted by the initial first draft writer. The assistant, in effect, is responsible for the finished product, which is duplicated and sent out to the actors, directors, crew and hundreds of other studio and network employees. For it is from that script that the half-hour episode is produced. Believe me, if an extra space or, God forbid, a misplaced comma is left in the middle of a line of dialogue, the writers’ assistant will hear about it.

The writers’ assistant is a combination of an organizer, proofreader, editor and, yes, joke-pitcher . . . since he or she is at the table with the writers and able to be involved in the process of rewriting (if the show runner is open to it).

It is the writers’ assistant who, in my opinion, is most ready to be promoted to a position of writer because he/she has been involved in the process (yes, it is a process) of writing the episode and readying it for the camera and audience. It is the writers’ assistant who has been paid on a weekly basis for an education in sitcom production like no other available today.

Yes, I have been a writers’ assistant. No, I have not been given a script assignment or been made a staff writer or story editor. Yes, I could fill that slot in a heartbeat.

And no, I’ve never provided a single producer with a cup of coffee.

ROBERT BRISCOE EVANS

Studio City