No WGA Support For Israel Over Hamas Attacks, Guild Boss Says; “Consensus Out Of Reach,” Meredith Stiehm Tells Showrunners

deadline.com:

EXCLUSIVE: The Writers Guild of America’s silence on the October 7 terrorist attacks on Israel looks to be the only statement they’ll be making, at least according to West Coast president Meredith Stiehm. “In the past week, some members have requested that the Guild take a public stand on events in the Middle East,” WGA West boss and former Homeland EP today told showrunners and others who have sought a statement of support and condolence from their Guild similar to what the DGA and SAG-AFTRA, plus Disney, Comcast, and many others have already said for the over 1400 killed by Hamas and the hundreds taken hostage. “Equally, many members have asked us to refrain from making any statement” Stiehm continued in the email sent out at around noon today.

Read the full email, entitled “Follow up to your outreach” from WGAW president Meredith Stiehm below. “The Board of Directors has worked exhaustively to consider the great diversity of opinions among our members on this issue, and determine how best to address this as a Guild,” the recently reelected WGAW president added, noting “we of course share your anguish,” to the concerned members. “Like the membership itself, the Board’s viewpoints are varied, and we found consensus out of reach.

For these reasons, we have decided not to comment publicly.” “What a total cop-out, they should be ashamed,” one prominent showrunner told Deadline of the email, which he received Saturday. “They put a statement out about everything else, but not dead Jews, disgusting.” Another scribe said that they thought “ChatGPT wrote this,” while yet another writer said they “had gotten letters from the taxman with more empathy.” Stiehm’s email nonewithstanding, there has been no official statement from