Do TV Writers Have A Fiduciary Duty To Their Audiences?

I can t help u.
I 'm not that kind of a doctor.





David

What the hell does 'Fiduciary' mean?

There does seem to be some confusion. As used here, it seems to be some vague sense of literary responsibility to the readers or watchers, doesn't it.

A fiduciary relationship is one of TRUST and CONFIDENCE,
e.g. between lawyer n client, accountant n client, medical doctor n patient.

The paradigm appears to be that a fictional interesting event
is offered to the public in incomplete form. The tacit implication
is that if members of the public will PAY ATTENTION to what
the author writes, then the previously un-available information
qua the said interesting event will be revealed. I see failure to
do that as being fraud. Information in exchange for attention is the quid pro quo.

In TV seasons, very ofen surviving shows end with a "cliff-hanger"
built-in to stimulate as intense curiosity as POSSIBLE.
Thay know well that our attention to their show is life or death
for the show and for their jobs. Thay dangle the missing information, as bait.

Thay don t always keep their words and pay off.
Sometimes, during the season, thay create situations that are
very difficult or impossible to explain, so thay promise to tell us
what it is and eventually, thay just forget about their promises; screw-us.
In exchange for our loyalty, thay passively make fools of us
by doing nothing, forgetting about their promises to explain.

Any problem with professional ethics there??





David

So, you're talking about literary style, ethics, or fiduciary responsibility?

You needn't answer. I'm off to check out the bad joke thread.

The word "Fiduciary" seems to have escaped from that bizarre parallel universe known as the Philosophy Board, where reality breaks down..

Are "trust" and "confidence" huge problems??
As to anyone? Your mom ?

I remember hearing somewhere that the first rule for writers is "Never con your readers" and I like that because it means never cross the line of credibility into fantasy.
For example one series of "Dallas" was explained away as a "dream" or something, so that killed-off characters could be brought back for the next series, i never watched the show myself but i gather fans raised a bit of an outcry.
And James Micheners "Centennial" book about American history also raised an outcry because he wove fact and fiction together and the publishers had to get him to write a foreword saying exactly which bits were true or false.

Fiduciary doesn't simply mean trust, it has the specific meaning of trust between a trustee and a beneficiary. The term fiduciary is used with regard to financial matters. It is ludicrous to suggest that it refers to a reader's trust of an author's veracity. As for Romeo's latest silliness, there is a huge and popular genre of literature which is called fantasy. The only obligation on an author of fantasy novels is internal consistency.

Michener was another one who toyed largely with history (and Science) whenever he felt the story needed some bolstering. I really don't mind any of these plot tricks and don't feel that the reader is being somehow "cheated" or "sold you out" is also part of the whole entertainment genre,

I get more PO'd at British series like "Midsomer Murders" or"Poirot" ( the David Suchet ones) where, in an effort to resolve a plot, the damn thing takes all sorts of turns and twists that make you lose your place. Many times they introduce totally left field information toward the end of the show and that requires one to closely pay attention to try to rerefine the pth one was already on. (not to mention those damn incomprehensible accents)
MONK used to do that, whenever he would say"HERES WHAT HAPPENED". SOmewhere a new plot evice was added and the viewer was left out

Fiduciary responsibility ? HELL NO, Its what made many of these shows what they are.

One series that I recall that was a total 180 was the old "Bob Newhart show" where he was running this Inn in Vermont. It all turnd out to be a dream that the Bob Newhart psychologist hd nd woke up to tell his wife Suzanne Pleshett all about it.

Yep , internal consistency is all they should maintain. The story itself will develop a following based on whether it worthy of reading or watching. The market will tell.

When I bought Michener's "Centennial" I assumed it'd be a genuine true account of American history, and at first I really enjoyed it until about halfway through when I got out an atlas to trace the routes of the early pioneers and discovered he'd invented towns, characters and incidents that never existed!
So I binned the book there and then, because I knew I could never trust another word he wrote.

PS- in a Star Trek episode called "Shore Leave" on an alien planet, McCoy is charged at by a mounted knight with a lance, but stands his ground saying to himself "This cannot be real, it's just an illusion", and is killed stone dead when the lance goes through his chest inflicting a terrible injury to the shock and horror of Kirk and the rest.
But later the scripters have him come back to life right as rain, cured by alien technology. That sort of stuff if fine in the bible, but in a TV show it just makes the viewers feel manipulated and conned.
It should be a writers rule that the dead never come back to life, no way hozay.

dispensing with reality is most often the mainstay of science fiction. There are entire industries built around untruths by authors, Look at Dan Brown. People love his stuff (Ive been told).

Stephen King's "Under the Dome" sounded great to start with when that dome descended on a town trapping people inside, but I abandoned it after watching the first few TV episodes because it degenerated into a soap, and everybody was taking it much too calmly instead of drawing up survival plans, so it just didn't ring true.

This is not new information.
The author is trusted to actually address the issues
that he has raised in order to induce the public
to read or to listen to his story, hearing him out.
He who pays the price is entitled to receive the
(overtly or implicitly) touted benefits. That 's the deal.

If u buy a can of beans, there r supposed to be beans
inside the can when u open it. The manufacturer is trusted
to provide that benefit to his customers; no surprize if he does.




All poodles r dogs; not all dogs r poodles.
Mr. Setanta, do u think that if a guy confesses homicide to his attorney,
the latter has no fiduciary duty to keep his mouth shut about it ?
or if the guy trusts his M.D. with his complaint qua premature ejaculation, u think
the doctor has no fiduciary duty to exclude that from his repartee at cocktail parties??
( no pun )
U think that if those 2 experts were being judged
by the issuing authorities of their respective licenses
in disciplinary proceedings for infractions
of their professional codes of responsibility,
thay 'd have dispositive defensives
in declaring:
"I had no fiduciary duty of silence to him
because no financial matters were involved,
merely matters of death and orgasm" ????
I don 't think so.



as ludicrous as your Tourette's syndrome

It is ludicrous to use the term fiduciary in this context.

Nonsense; a fiduciary relationship is one of trust and confidence.

As usual, Mr. Mensa shows a profound ignorance of language. It is ludicrous to use fiduciary in this context. Not only is it an inappropriate use of fiduciary, it is predicated on an idiotic contention that authors have some responsibility to their readers. They don't. If what they write is popular, they will be successful. If it's not, they will either not be successful, or will cease to be successful. There is no relationship between an author (especially screen writers, the original subjects of this silly thread) and a potential or even an existing audience which requires performance of the author. As was pointed out quite early in this thread, any such relationship would only exist between the writer and his employer. It is for the employer that writers must perform.