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“The Wire” – episode 52 (focusing primarily, but not exclusively, on the show’s journalism-related content)

Please note that this episode has not yet aired on HBO (it is available only on HBO On Demand) and therefore contains spoilers for most viewers. Please observe the spoiler space below to avoid gaining unwanted information about a show you haven’t yet seen.

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The tagline on episode 52 is again from Bunk, who says “this ain’t Aruba, bitch.” The statement occurs during a barstool conversation among Bunk, Lester and McNulty about why the 22 murders of African American Baltimoreans now are not being investigated, and why the media have not made more noise about that fact. The conclusion is that the bodies were “the wrong color” and that if 300 white folks were killed each year in Baltimore (or wherever), the National Guard would be brought in. Finally, McNulty makes a reference to the Natalee Holloway case in which a southern teen on vacation in Aruba disappeared, earning the media’s (led by the likes of Nancy Grace) fixation, prompting Bunk’s apropos comment. I couldn’t agree more.

My first observation from this episode deals with the scenes involving Steve Earle and Bubbles (whose first name, apparently, is Reginald). Now, Andre Royo is a breathtaking actor who can convey volumes of feeling, of experience, regret, guilt, weariness, etc., all with a shrug of the shoulder or the dizzying, herky-jerky delivery of his lines. Steve Earle, who plays Bubs’ sponsor and the leader of a twelve-step group of recovering addicts, is not an actor. He’s a singer, and he’s not even very good at that. Earle’s lines are delivered with a distracting woodenness that strikes a discordant note in otherwise moving and successful scenes. He’s one of the very few Wire actors I have ever felt were miscast (the others being Anwan Glover as Slim Charles and Aidan Gillen as Councilman—now mayor—Tommy Carcetti). Given the sprawling nature of the story and the hundreds of faces that have appeared and spoken onscreen, that’s not a bad ratio, I suppose…

There is a sense of foreboding with McNulty in the opening scenes of the show, in which he makes angry, misdirected comments at Rhonda Pearlman and Kima observes after his departure, “he’s a pissy little bitch today.” (A comment that could be—and has been—said of me on more than one occasion.) It doesn’t help matters when his car has a flat so he nearly breaks his foot kicking the car, then has to take an MTA bus to the crime scene of his homicide investigation. I have to say I’m glad McNulty (played by Dominic West) is being featured more prominently this season. He’s the perfect example of the working class in a postmodern city—stuck in the system, yet smart enough to know what parts of the system are screwed. McNulty’s impotent anger—hitting out at the wrong targets because the problems are bigger than can really be addressed—is the driving force of this show. It’s telling that even Bunk, who has abetted many of McNulty’s misadventures both on and off the job, is horrified by his partner’s actions at the end of the episode.

In another memorable scene out by the loading docks of The Sun, where Gus and some other veterans go for smoke breaks, Gus tells the oft-repeated story of a young reporter in a news conference with 1950s Bawlmer mayor Tom D’Alesandro who meekly (and rather spinelessly) says several times that “the city desk wants to know” this and “the city desk asked me to clarify” that. Without a word, the mayor finally puts his ear to his own desk, looks up and says, “My desk tells your desk to go fuck itself.” The old-timers agree that the story is too good even to verify, but it has been repeated and printed in several sources.

The Sun’s Executive Editor James C. Whiting (played with oily corporate aplomb by Sam Freed) begins a meeting in the conference room by stating that he wants The Sun to go for its Pulitzer. The Pulitzer Prizes for Journalism have been awarded for more than 90 years from an endowment left by famed newspaper publisher, editor, and pioneer Joseph Pulitzer. The most prestigious awards in the field of journalism, Pulitzers are awarded annually by Columbia University in 22 categories including reporting, editing, criticism, feature writing, and editorial cartooning. When Whiting says he wants the paper to go for its Pulitzer, it’s the equivalent of a studio head insisting that a Holocaust drama be made starring Meryl Streep in the hope of snagging Oscar nominations. It’s a craven and short-sighted statement that subverts the art it purports to celebrate, and Gus Haynes quite understandably rolls his eyes.

Whiting’s big idea is to produce a “Dickensian” series about the lives of city children—which will show “clearly and concisely where the school system has failed them.” The wording and construction here are priceless for both fans of “The Wire” and those who have spent some time around the field of journalism. First of all, “The Wire” has itself been called Dickensian by critics, who praise its resemblance to a nineteenth-century novel by Dickens like Bleak House in which the socioeconomic realities of the day are explored in a sprawling narrative, sweeping in disparate segments of population and experience. (A recent NY Times article on the last season of “The Wire” was even headlined, “No Happy Ending in Dickensian Baltimore.”)

Whiting’s statement is absurd because he is simultaneously calling for the Pulitzer-baiting series to be both “Dickensian” (passionate, thorough, expansive, detailed, naturalistic) and “concise” in focusing only on how the school system has failed children. To be truly Dickensian, the series would have to focus on children, parents, institutions, and everything in between—which “The Wire” does but newspapers almost never have the courage or dedication to do. Because Scott Templeton, the young hotshot reporter who wants to work at a “real” paper like the Post or Times someday, agrees with Whiting that context isn’t that vital to telling such a story—and thus earns himself the lead on the series. Whiting says they need to “limit the scope, not get bogged down in details” and an unnamed reporter pipes up and says, “There’s more impediments to learning that a lack of materials or a dysfunctional bureaucracy.” Whiting’s response: “But who wants to read about that?” Again, The Sun is pandering to the lowest common denominator, which has been the case for the field of journalism in general. Reporters are instructed on most pieces to assume their readership is at a sixth grade reading level, a short attention span, and little initiative or natural curiosity. And the product reflects that.

The meeting ends when Whiting asks what the “budget line” (the “pitch” line in the budget, or roster of articles, that summarizes what the article will be about) will be and Gus responds, “Johnny can’t write ‘cause Johnny doesn’t have a fuckin’ pencil.” Whiting angrily insists the paper does not want “an amorphous series detailing society’s ills” (god forbid) because “if you leave everything in, soon you’ve got nothing.” This kind of double-talk is reminiscent of the managing editor’s statement in episode 51 that “you’ll just have to do more with less.”

The storyline here is intriguing on several levels. First, it’s another example of an institution that is set up to do good (journalism is designed to keep a public well-informed about its world) getting dragged down by short-sightedness, lack of funds, arrogance and incompetence. Second, it provides another point of entry into the schools, which were the focus of last season (will we see Prez this year?). And finally, it ties the whole thing up nicely; as Simon himself said in one of the introductory shows about this season of “The Wire”: if we’ve gotten any of this right, why are we the only ones paying any attention to it? In other words, where and why have the media failed?

That night, Gus has a “deadline nightmare” which occurs when one has put a piece “to bed” but later questions whether he or she might have made an error. Once the ink hits the page, it’s difficult to take the words back; the “Corrections and Clarifications” portion of a newspaper is usually buried on page A2 and seldom read. Gus is worried about the fact that he may have transposed (inadvertently switched) some numbers on a port article and wants to copy editor to check his “nut graph” (sometimes spelled “nut graf”). A nut graph is a usually the second paragraph in an article, and it details what the piece is about. Some reporters “bury” their nut graphs (put them too deep within the article, obscured by quotes, background, or set-up) and have to be reminded to let them breathe.

The managing editor soon singles Scott out for his loyalty by awarding him a leading “color” piece in a story about the opening day of the Baltimore Orioles’ baseball season. A color piece (from “local color”) is a human interest story that provides a personal angle on an otherwise straight-ahead story. Scott says, “I’d really like to find some chaw-chewin’ old timer who’d rather die than miss an O’s opener.” What he finds, however, are only cynics and casual fans: one older man laments the steroid scandal and says the sport is in disarray, another disinterestedly says that his son kinda likes baseball, and another punctuates his failure to get usable material by saying “Fuck baseball!”

The problem arises for Scott when he goes into his assignment with an idea of what he would find when he started asking questions. Journalists should go into any story well-informed, but otherwise wide open to the possibilities of the story’s path. When one starts an interview with an idea of what’s going to come out of the subject’s mouth, one begins to ask “leading questions” or those designed to elicit a specific answer. Then you’re “putting words in someone’s mouth,” as the dreadful Lesley Stahl does week after week on “60 Minutes.” (An example of a leading question that stands out in my mind from a Stahl interview: “And that made you feel really resentful, didn’t it?”) Because Scott knew he wanted a chaw-chewin’ old timer, he couldn’t use the material he did get from the cynics and casual fans, and therein lies the problem.

Scott magically arrives back at the newsroom and tells Gus about the story he did get—about a 13-year-old kid in a wheelchair (put there, evidently, by a gunshot would, though details are sparse) who did not have a ticket to the game. The boy would only give his name as “E.J.” (ostensibly because he was truant from school) and there is no art (no photograph to accompany the article) because a photographer was unavailable. Gus’s journalistic instincts cause him to question the piece, and rightly so. The background is shady, they don’t have a last name so there’s nothing to verify or fact-check, and Scott’s claim that there was no photographer is questionable (wouldn’t there have been at least one at the ballpark for opening day?). Moreover, Scott couldn’t locate the boy when he went back to try to get “art.”

None of this matters much to Whiting, though. He sees it as a solid piece that captures the disparity of the city—the upper crust, enjoying a ballgame, while a 13-year-old gunshot victim is stranded outside, pitifully listening to the roars of the crowd. He awards Scott the “lead” (it will appear front page, despite the lack of “art”) and Gus must capitulate.

I have a feeling I know where this storyline is going: Scott made the whole damned thing up. He wandered around outside the ballpark, failing to get the story he wanted, and finally got desperate and concocted this young boy out of thin air. In future episodes I think it’s going to come out gradually: there never was a boy named “E.J.” shot in Baltimore; the schools have no record of this child; the photograph never received a call requesting “art” for Scott’s article. The end result is a scandal—and I don’t think Scott will stop there. In his Pulitzer-baiting series on the failure of schools, he’ll fabricate information, pipe quotes (invent or embellish direct quotes from sources), and the like.

It may be surprising to many outside the field that reporters could or would make shit up; we assume that every word we read in the paper is precisely as it went down. But it happens far more than one might think. Milder examples include quote piping (cleaning up, rearranging, or even creating out of thin air, supposedly direct quotes from a subject so it fits more cleanly in the piece). More extreme examples are the cases of Janet Cooke, Jayson Blair, and Stephen Glass. Briefly, Janet Cooke was a reporter for the Washington Post in 1981 who had to return a Pulitzer she won for a piece on an eight-year-old heroin addict who did not exist. Jayson Blair invented interviews, quotes, and places for the New York Times in the late 90s; he submitted expense reports for trips that never happened, and described places he’d never been. He also plagiarized (took pieces of other people’s articles without crediting them). His actions were a serious “black eye” for the newspaper and several editors resigned in the wake of the scandal. Finally, Stephen Glass was an associate editor and writer for the New Republic magazine who was perhaps the most audacious fabulist of them all—he invented people, corporations, commissions, and conventions, and created a sloppy paper trail to back it all up.

How could this have happened? Aren’t reporters’ articles fact checked? Yes, they are, but there’s at least one huge hole in the process. In cases like those cited above, the fact-checkers are relying mainly on the reporter’s notes for confirmation, because they involve privileged or fleeting conversations, confidential sources, or the like. And this is, I’m afraid, what’s going on with Scott.

END OF EPISODE 52 NOTES