Late-night hosts caught between rock, hard place

I'm glad I'm not Jay Leno. Or Conan O'Brien. Or Jimmy Kimmel.

The three late-night hosts were put in impossible positions by the ongoing strike by the Writers Guild of America. Should they continue to stay off the air, affirming their respect for and loyalty to the striking writers?

Or should they go back to work to prevent almost 300 people who work for their shows from being fired?

"Tonight Show" host Leno, "Late Night" host O'Brien and "Jimmy Kimmel Live's" host have decided on the latter, agreeing to return to the air Tuesday, Jan. 2, whether the strike is over or not. Each man issued similar statements about why he'd come to his decision.

"Unfortunately ... I am left with a difficult decision," O'Brien said. "Either go back to work and keep my staff employed or stay dark and allow 80 people, many of whom have worked for me for 14 years, to lose their jobs."

"Now that the talks have broken down and there are no further negotiations scheduled, I feel it's my responsibility to get my 100 non-writing staff, which were laid off, back to work," Leno said.

"Though it makes me sick to do so without my writers, there are more than a hundred people whose financial well-being depends on our show. It is time to go back to work," Kimmel said.

There's precedent for their decision. NBC was quick to point out that after Johnny Carson stayed off the air for two months during the last extended Writers Guild strike in 1988, he, too, returned to work to keep his staff from losing their jobs.

Leno, O'Brien and Kimmel expressed strong support for the WGA, and there will be those who argue they're betraying the writers by going back to work. (Carson Daly — who, unlike the others, is not a member of the WGA — went back to work on NBC's "Later" earlier this month and has been criticized by union members.)

But how do you argue against them saving the 280 jobs of people who aren't independently wealthy and are suffering because they've been out of work for two months?

I'm not pretending for a moment that I can fully understand the position O'Brien, Leno and Kimmel find themselves in. But what if my decisions affected my co-workers' livelihood?

There wasn't a good answer here for Leno, O'Brien or Kimmel who are themselves employees of their networks. It really is a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situation.