Not since the Helen Kushnick debacle 15 years ago when his manager crashed and burned as The Tonight Show‘s exec producer has Jay Leno taken such a terrible PR wallop as he did today. Today’s Drudge headline, misleadingly, says “Leno fires staff” when what happened is that about 120 of the show’s non-writing staffers…

CAST: Amy Ryan, Patricia Clarkson CREATIVE TEAM: George Hickenlooper, Alan Sereboff, Kamala Lopez, Jill Kushner MUSIC: Anthony Marinelli TECHNICAL TEAM: Joel Marshall, Justin Shumaker, Clint Bennett This is the 16th of the Writers Guild Of America member-conceived Internet videos for Project “Speechless” featuring…

This is guaranteed to make Hollywood hate Ben even more without Silverman even shooting off his mouth in the press yet again. How nice for him that Shine, the UK indie owned and run by Elisabeth Murdoch, will snag his production company for something like $200 million. Ironic that a Murdoch winds up solving NBC’s…

Thank you for understanding.

(Keep refreshing for the latest…) THURSDAY PM UPDATE: I’m told WGA negotiators are still waiting for the other “half” of the AMPTP’s Day #4 new proposals (the half that presumably contains the missing terms on ESTs, electronic sell-throughs?) which agent Bryan Lourd said should be in their hands by Tuesday if not bef…

(Keep refreshing for the latest…) I was told last night by a top Hollywood CEO that the moguls had decided to allow AMPTP to put on the negotiating table a sweetened deal at Talks Day #4 today. “The producers are trying to put something on the table tomorrow [Thursday] that will jaw this loose. It will include…

I just learned that Conan O’Brien has made arrangements to pay his staff who will be laid off by NBC as of Friday. About 80 production people — like talent bookers, producers, production assistants —  will be taken care of by the Late Night host who is supposed to move to The Tonight Show in 2009. Sources tell me this…

Coming soon in another post…

There’s little more to say about Wednesday’s talks other than that, unfortunately. “This is not heading in the right direction,” a mogul quoted his labor exec as saying to him yesterday. Another source told me, “It’s stalemated. Nothing’s getting achieved.” I’m not sure people are aware that CAA partner Bryan Lourd…

There’s another “Gay Gate” picketing event organized by members of the WGA West’s Gay & Lesbian Writers Committee for gay and lesbian writers, talent, and other supporters today at NBC Studios in Burbank (at the Alameda Gate) from 10 AM to 1 PM.

With the assistance of Christina Applegate, Samantha Who? writer Bob Kushell made this video to help the scribes survive their wedded bliss during the WGA strike.

I’m told the AMPTP’s so-called PR council formed by corporate communications execs at the studios and networks really want to make their own clever YouTube videos to compete with the ones up and running by striking WGA members. No greenlights yet. Until then, here’s a wry WGA-member written video entitled “Harsh Words&#8221…