WGA Report Says Slow Progress for Female, Minority TV Writers

Our Take:
While much of the industry rallies behind the LGBT community as they face potential legal discrimination, other injustices are afoot elsewhere. The Writers Guild of America, West (WGAW) acknowledged that employment of female and minority writers is up in recent years, but slow progress and reversals are plaguing the industry, Deadline reports. Jobs for minority writers jumped 41% between 2009 and 2014, the report said. But at the same time, female writers only account for 26% of all writers employed in 2014, African-Americans 4%, Latinos 3%, Asian-Americans 2.6% and Native Americans 0.2%. Moreover: Women earned 89 cents and minorities earned 75 cents for each dollar earned by white male writers. More details from the article below.
The WGA said today that employment of female and minority film and TV writers is way up in recent years, but it called the latest hiring data “a mixture of slow, forward progress, stalls and reversals.” Jobs for minority writers jumped a whopping 41% between 2009 and 2014, according to the report released today, while the employment of female writers increased by 23%.