The LA Times wrote an article yesterday about freelance late-night joke writers, and having proudly been one myself, I had to comment.

The first thing that got me about the article was how apparently it’s some huge revelation that most of the late-night shows take freelance jokes and pay only $75 to $100 per joke.  I understand how the general public might not be aware of it, but this has been around for many many many years, and most people who work in Hollywood know about it, so what shocks me most is the fact the LA Times and the WGA are playing dumb about it, as if it’s suddenly news to them.

The other thing that gets me about the article is how they are all completely missing the point.

I freelanced briefly years ago for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.  I heard through the grapevine that they took submissions by fax and I thought it would be a great starter credit if I could sell some jokes to The Tonight Show.  So I wrote some jokes and faxed them in.

I am hugely proud of the fact that already on my second day I sold a joke.  Jay Leno told my joke to a huge laugh and even did some follow-up with Kevin Eubanks.  I heard from many people who said they tried for years to sell a joke and never sold any.  I continued faxing and selling for a short while, but soon stopped because I had already accomplished what I had set out to do.  And now I proudly list that credit in my bio.

Do I think $75 for a joke is too small?  First of all, it was never about the money — it was about getting a starter credit to build a resume and slowly break into the biz.  And on that count it was well worth it.  But let’s even talk about the money.  The problem isn’t the $75 a joke — the problem is that you’re not being paid for all the other jokes you submitted that were NOT purchased.  They have a staff and most of the jokes will come from the staff, so you’re not selling many jokes.  It’s the not being paid for the unsold jokes that’s the real kicker.  And that’s why I soon stopped because I had already gotten the credit I was looking for and therefore it didn’t monetarily make sense anymore.  (To be clear, I mean credit as in something I put on my resume — it is true that you don’t receive any official screen credit as such.)

So here’s how I feel about the situation.  If the freelance system is being abused, that needs to be outed and corrected, but at the same time, having freelance opportunities available for the people trying to break in is HUGELY important.  What the LA Times article illustrates to me is a current failing in unions, who don’t see it as their responsibility to help define the proper break-in path of newbies (and make sure that there ARE viable paths). The union members say the responsibility of the union is only to their current dues-paying members, and in my opinion that is short-sighted and wrong.  And will continue to lead to non-union newbies undermining the union because they need to do whatever they can to try to break in.  Until the unions take on some form of responsibility for people trying to break into the biz, I don’t see how they can complain.

So the solution isn’t to cut those freelance opportunities for newbies, it’s to make sure that this is being used properly as a starter credit and not being misused to either mistreat the freelancers on the one hand or take away any staff jobs on the other.

Listen, I walked around in circles with picket signs and will do so again in a heartbeat, but as big a union supporter as I am, I think this aspect of only being responsible to the current dues-paying members and not to the profession as a whole (which includes the newbies trying to break in) is a disgrace.