When she joined the Writers Guild of America, West in 1975, Mason continued the legacy begun in 1953 by Helen Thompson, the Guild's first African-American member. As did Thompson, many fellow black and women writers over the years were inspired by Mason's decades-spanning career in television, film, and on the stage. Writers Guild Award-winning writer Tina Andrews notes about Mason, "So many of us are here as writers because she was there first willing to assist our journeys. I thank God I had her powerful shoulders to stand upon."

A Shreveport, Louisiana native and Grambling State University alumna, Mason began in theater, becoming a prolific playwright with her work still in production today. She penned over 25 published and produced plays such as: Living Fat, for which she won the Kennedy Center's Norman Lear Award for comedy writing at only age 19, and A Star Ain't Nothin’ but a Hole in Heaven, garnering her the first Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting Award in 1977. She also became one of the youngest playwrights – of any race – ever to be produced Off-Broadway.

She was also a successful television writer/producer. Her career in television began at barely 20 years old after being hired as a writer on the CBS hit Good Times by TV legend Norman Lear, when he was the show’s executive producer/developer. "I never saw Judy Ann Mason without a smile. She brought it to her writing and her writing brought the rest of us to laughter. She was the ultimate upper," commented Lear on Mason's passing.

Her other TV writing credits include writing or co-writing for primetime network shows such as A Different World (NBC), American Gothic (CBS), Beverly Hills 90210 (FOX), Sanford, (NBC), and the Emmy-nominated series I’ll Fly Away (NBC). Her telefilm credits include Lifetime’s Sophie & the Moonhanger (teleplay by Sara Flanigan and Judi Ann Mason, story by Sara Flanigan). In addition, she wrote on daytime serials, as Head Writer for the Writers Development Program at Guiding Light (CBS), later becoming Associate Head Writer on the ground-breaking Generations (NBC), the first daytime series to center around an African American family.

Albers and Fontana will receive their awards at the 61st annual awards ceremony Feb. 7 at the Hudson Theatre. Albers served as president and Fontana as VP of the WGA East from 2005 to 2007. During that time, the two worked to broker the agreement that ended the long-running hostilities between WGA East and WGA West. "Albers and Fontana personify what the Jablow Award is about: service and dedication to the Writers Guild East and its membership," said WGA East president Michael Winship.

During Albers' term as president, the WGA organized Comedy Central's The Daily Show With Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report. He's also been a monologue writer since 1995 at Late Night With Conan O'Brien, winning an Emmy and six WGA awards.

Fontana is president of the WGA East Foundation. He's also written and produced St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street and Oz, for which he received three Emmys.

With more than 500 supporters cheering, Writers Guild of America, west, President Patric Verrone threw down the gauntlet to the major media companies Wednesday morning. "Every piece of media with a moving image on a screen or a recordable voice must have a writer and every writer must have a WGA contract," Verrone said at a spirited rally held at Pan Pacific Park in the Fairfax District.

The WGA's current minimum basic agreement contract expires at the end of next year and the guild's new aggressive leadership believes the most important bargaining session of their time lies ahead. WGA members from prime-time scripted shows, reality shows, daytime soaps, game shows, animated programs and movies converged for more than two hours chanting slogans, waving signs and all wearing matching red T-shirts. They were joined by members of sister unions Screen Actors Guild, Director's Guild of America, and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, among others.

"We intend to send a message of unity to the community," Verrone said before the group marched down Beverly Boulevard and Fairfax Street around CBS studios. Phil Alden Robinson ("Field of Dreams") said the WGA is "at one of the watershed moments of our history," which he compared to the advent of television in the 1950s and home video in the '80s. He said a lack of guild unity resulted in about $2 billion in lost home video residuals. "We can stand united and win or we can be divided and lose," Robinson told the crowd. "What the companies want to give us is a poor deal that only covers some writers. What we want is a good deal that covers all writers."

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"Desperate Housewives" creator and head writer Marc Cherry, who brought his entire writing staff to the rally, said that due to the "ebb and flow" of the entertainment industry, residuals and benefits are of vital importance to writers. After Cherry ended a three-and-a-half year stint as a writer on "The Golden Girls" in 1993, he hit a dry patch until "Housewives" got the greenlight in 2004. "When I was really unemployed, the things that really kept me going were residuals and health benefits," Cherry said. "This is a rough town."

They're called "the story department." They slave over treatments and final drafts. They agonize over storytelling techniques, character development and plot twists. But are they writers? The answer is yes if you ask the 12 staff producers on the reality hit "America's Next Top Model" who went on strike July 21 to win recognition as members of the Writers Guild of America. The "Top Model" dozen have been walking a picket line outside the West Los Angeles offices of the show's executive producer Ken Mok ever since.

"Say you're watching a ('Top Model') scene with six girls standing around talking," says Kai Bowe, a striking "Top Model" associate show producer. "And then you switch to a girl in (a one-on-one) interview, and then you go back to the girls talking but with a few lines of voice-over from the interview. We're the ones who choose all of that, line by line."

Adds Bowe's fellow striker Sara Sluke, "It's not like it comes out of the camera that way." As show producers and associate show producers, they slog through an average of 200 hours of raw footage to assemble each 41-minute episode. They shape the story lines in each episode and the overarching drama for each cycle of competition. They determine how the characters are portrayed -- and they find the "red herrings" to throw in to keep things from getting too predictable, Sluke says.

The "Top Model" labor action marks an escalation of the union's efforts to organize in the reality TV arena. That push has drawn criticism from some in the industry who view it as a costly effort waged on behalf of nonmembers who are employed by the very shows that are taking jobs away from existing members.

Young replaces John McLean, who was ousted last year. Young's appointment must be confirmed by the 9,500-member guild, which represents Hollywood TV and film writers.

The veteran labor official brought more aggressive tactics to the guild as it seeks to make major gains for writers in such areas as reality TV, animation and digital downloading.

About 200 actors and writers carried picket signs and chanted outside the Beverly Hills Hotel where agents, producers and brand directors were meeting with ad executives at a conference sponsored by Advertising Age, The Hollywood Reporter said. "Where are the voices of the creative community in this debate? Out here on the street," Writers Guild of America West President Patric Verrone said. The unions want the entertainment industry to establish a code of conduct for product integration into shows, The Reporter said.

Screen Actors Guild President Alan Rosenberg said members deserve both consultation and compensation. "Whatever happened to artistic integrity?," he said. "When did we lose the right to say yes or no?"

In the three months since he was named interim executive director of the Writers Guild, West, Young has adopted the kind of disruptive tactics traditionally used by blue-collar unions. In September, writers staged a protest outside Advertising Age's "Madison and Vine" conference in New York that included protesters dressed as reality TV stars Donald Trump and Martha Stewart.

Twenty guild members later crashed a panel of reality TV producers at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills, handing out leaflets and briefly engaging panelists in discussions about poor working conditions and pay in the reality genre. Writers also leafleted the Museum of Television & Radio in New York to protest what they believe is excessive product placement in TV.

Although Young's tactics have succeeded in getting publicity, they garner mixed reviews within the 9,500-member union. Supporters believe they draw attention to the guild's gripes and help galvanize members. But critics see them as pointless gimmicks inappropriate for writers.

"We're not Teamsters, we're not textile workers," said former board member Larry Gelbart, a veteran writer whose credits include the TV series "MASH" and such movies as "Tootsie" and "Neighbors." "The last thing we want is to be turned away at the door because someone is afraid we're going to make a scene."

The unions called for a code of conduct that would make it clear from the start of a program that viewers would be watching scenes in which companies have paid for their products to be used. The unions said that revenues generated last year from product placement deals reached more than $1 billion.

In an eight-page policy paper on the issue, the Writers Guild cited as an example the third season of NBC reality show "The Apprentice," in which Burger King, Dove Body Wash, Sony PlayStation, Verizon Wireless and Visa reportedly paid upward of $2 million apiece have their products incorporated into an episode of the show.

Patric Verrone, president of the Writers Guild, West, said traditional network standards governing commercial product placement "are increasingly being swept aside in favor of product integration and branded entertainment." He added: "In their race to the bottom line to create the so-called new business model, network and advertising executives are ignoring the public's interest and demanding that creative artists participate in stealth advertising disguised as a story."

SAG and the WGA added that if they could not win an agreement with producers on the issue, they would file a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates broadcast television.

The glamorous image of a Hollywood scriptwriter's lifestyle as an endless round of leisurely lunches and celebrity parties has been exposed as a lie by a class action lawsuit filed against one of America's biggest television networks.Fox TV is accused of overseeing and airing shows that were produced by writers who endured intolerable working conditions, being forced to skip meals, submit fake time cards and work more than 80 hours a week in cramped and overheated offices. "The conditions in this industry resemble sweatshops," said the suit on behalf of writers on seven reality TV series.

Daniel Petrie, western area president of the Writers Guild of America, which is backing the action launched by 10 writers and editors on such shows as Trading Spouses, Joe Millionaire and Married by America, said working conditions had pushed some writers to the brink. "We've heard stories of people breaking down from the strain, of men and women working from nine in the morning until after midnight with no meal breaks, of location shoots where eight people were required to work in hot trailers meant for four," he said.