Monsoon Martin's The Wire - Episode 52 Commentary

“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

Monsoon Martin's The Wire - Journalism Terms Glossary (episode 51)

My Weather-Friends,

As many of you know, I consider “The Wire” the finest television show in the history of the medium. It has just begun its fifth and final season on HBO, and the focus this go-round is the media and its struggles and failures. The season will be centered around a newsroom (a fictional Baltimore Sun) while still following some of the other plot threads (schools, drug trade, police activity, city hall) that have developed over the previous four seasons. Since there was a lot of jargon being thrown around in Episode 51, and because I have some background in the field of Journalism, I thought I'd put together a sort of running glossary/guide for the terminology used. I am, of course, open to corrections or clarifications on any of these points. (I would also like to thank the members of the Yahoo! Wire group in advance for the fine-tuning this list has already undergone.) The show airs Sunday nights at 9 on HBO with episodes appearing On Demand the Monday previous to airing.

Enjoy!

Monsoon

“The Wire” Journalism terms

Episode 51

The Baltimore Sun is the newspaper of record for the state of Maryland, having been founded in 1837. It is now owned by the Tribune Company in Chicago, which also owns the LA Times, the Orlando Sentinel, and other papers in addition to its broadcast media holdings.

The open floor plan layout of the Sun’s newsroom on “The Wire” is very true to life. It was designed as such to maximize interaction among a newspaper’s various departments and desks, unlike a traditional office, which is usually fragmented by a series of high cubicle walls. As the Sun’s City Editor Gus Haynes (played by Clark Johnson) says, “I’ll tell you what a healthy newsroom is. It’s a place where people argue about everything, all the time.” More competition, overworked and younger employees, and lack of job security have dampened this free and spirited exchange of ideas in modern newsrooms. Though the (real) Sun’s TV critic pans the portrayal of his newspaper on “The Wire” as simplistic and mired in jargon, I think it’s nuanced and brilliant.

The Managing Editor referred to in the first conversation is the second-highest in rank after the executive editor, and is directly responsible for most of the day-to-day operation of the newspaper.

A Foreign Bureau is physically located in a foreign country and usually includes reporters and an administrative staff (whereas a Foreign Affairs Desk is dedicated to foreign reporting but is physically located on the premises of the publication). In the first news scene, the three gentlemen are discussing the rumored closings of all foreign bureaus, including Johannesburg and Beijing.  Foreign bureaus are typically expensive to maintain, so cost-cutting measures target them aggressively, opting to rely instead on foreign reporting by the

Associated Press (AP) or other foreign bureaus.

The three gentlemen by the newspaper loading dock are also discussing impending layoffs and buyouts, “as bad as in Philly.” This refers to the recent downsizing of staff throughout layoffs, early retirements, and buyouts at the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News. This is endemic to mid-size to large newspapers throughout the country, which are still profitable—but less so, due to declining circulation, loss of readership and ad revenues, etc. The publishers and managing partners of the news outlets panic because profitability is down—though still fairly robust compared with other industries—and begin laying off workers. It has been argued that profitability is down as well because content is made freely available online, which is not the case in other countries. Buyouts began in earnest in the 1990s and in most cases, when a worker is “bought out,” the job itself is eliminated as well. David Simon himself took one of the initial buyouts at the Sun. Many departments are now expected to churn out the same quality product with half its former staff size.

An illustration of this phenomenon is when another, smaller paper “scoops” the Sun on a transportation story the Sun should have gotten. While Haynes reminds the managing editor that the Sun has not had a transport reporter since the last round of buyouts, the managing editor reminds his staff that “just because Chicago does a little belt-tightening is no reason for us to fall down,” referring to the Tribune Company’s ownership of—and immediate and incessant cost-cutting measures at—the Sun. He then utters the famous phrases (which resonates through the police subplot as well), “You’ll just have to do more with less.” In one of the HBO documentaries about the fifth season, David Simon adds, “Of course you don’t do more with less; you do less with less.”

Haynes complains to a reporter that he’s always having to rework his lead.  The lead (sometimes spelled lede) refers to the first sentence or two of a news piece, which conveys as much of the 5W and 1H (who, what, where, when, why and how) as possible. Particularly in today’s world of short attention spans, the headline and lead are often the only things a reader will actually read as he or she peruses the newspaper. Here is a very good example of a lead from the January 2nd edition of the Washington Post: “Candidates for the Democratic and Republican presidential nominations rallied supporters in Iowa today on the eve of the state's caucuses, as new polls showed tightening races among the leading contenders in both parties.”

Later in this exchange, Haynes asks the reporter to get him material by the “e-dot deadline” and later mentions a “double-dot deadline.” According to a Yahoo! Wire group member: “Dots are also called bugs. They're tiny marks you see at the top of the page if the page has been reworked for a later edition. Pages for the first edition (also called Four-Star) have an 11:30pm deadline (approx) and have no extra mark on the page. Five-star, or E-dot, is marked with one dot and would be the the five-star (next edition, the deadline is around 12:30am). Five-star chase, or double dot, is the final, marked with a letter F or C or a dot and a letter F or C and that close is anywhere from 1:15am to 2:30am depending on what kind of news day is happening.”

A deadline, of course, is the time set by which a step of the reporting process must be completed—copy deadline refers to when a story’s finished draft must be submitted to a copy editor; print deadline refers to the moment an edition must be finished and laid out to be sent to the printer. An article is often referred to as a “piece.”

From another Yahoo! Wire group member: “The path is story creation, then source editing (do the facts make sense? too much or too little of something in the story), copyediting (correct typographical errors), slot editing (does it fit on the page space allotted to it? plus putting in the headline, pull quotes and so on), then the page is checked and approved. You can't have all the stories done at the same time, because then your various editors would have too much to do all at once.

“Similarly, they can't send all the pages at once, because there is a limited number of plates that can be made at once. If they want to change ten pages on deadline, it's a really big deal, and they may let the pages go if they're not actually erroneous and do a ‘chase.’ This is where they replace the plates on the press after printing the first few, or if it's multiple presses they hold back on one press and put on the new ones, then stop the first and replace the old ones, all so they won't miss the press deadline for first good paper out of the pressroom.

“Color pages require multiple copies (cyan magenta yellow black) and every page has to have two plates because they put two copies on the drum, so plate A impresses and then plate B. Unless it's a "collect" run, but that doesn't happen very often.”

A columnist is a newspaper employee who is paid to write periodic (usually weekly or biweekly) columns for the paper, which can be humorous, lifestyle, related to politics or civic life, business, sports, or any number of niches.

It’s one of the few places in the newspaper (the other being the op-ed page, or opinion-editorial page) where a newspaper employee may offer his or her opinion.  Haynes derisively remarks that columnists are “paid to sit on [their] asses.”

The Associated Press (AP) is a news organization that employs a vast (though shrinking) network of reporters to produce stories that will be syndicated throughout the country—and sometimes the world. Sometimes the AP will “pick up” a story that is of wider interest from a local or regional newspaper and syndicate it to other news outlets. On these occasions, the local reporter receives additional pay and his or her newspaper is highlighted as one that is producing quality journalism. Newspapers must pay to use AP articles, of course.

Haynes shouts on a couple of occasions that he needs “budget lines.” He’s looking for shorter pieces of background relating to the developing city budget.  Another theory from a Yahoo! Wire group member: “The budget is the list of stories scheduled to be printed that night. Without more context I'm not sure what Haynes is asking for, but he's probably asking to be allowed to put more stories in.”

A reporter asks, “What about art for the Hopkins press conference?” Art here refers to photographic illustration of a story, which is essential for prominent pieces. Because downsizing occurs among the photography staff of a newspaper too, though, it’s difficult to get a photographer to every newsworthy event.

A couple of things related to newspaper “art”: first, a “grip-and-grin” is a derisive term for a photograph of a civic event that features participants shaking hands and posing—as the announcement of a new initiative, the donation of funds, etc. Also, Haynes is incensed when he receives the “art” for an East Baltimore row house fire because it features a charred doll in the foreground.  This composition is a common—and lazy—way for a photographer to convey the sense of loss and the ways in which a fire may have affected a home’s children.

Haynes speculates that since all of the photographer’s fire photos have a burnt doll or singed toy in the foreground, he must have a trunk full of them and some lighter fluid so he can stage the photograph just right.

Various desks are mentioned—state desk, metro desk, city desk. These are dedicated “departments” whose reporters cultivate knowledge of, and write pieces about, civic affairs in the city, metropolitan area, and state. The reporting in these areas has suffered mightily as a result of cutbacks, particularly at a place like the Sun, because older reporters with lots of contacts and expertise are being “bought out” and inexperienced recruits fresh out of “j-school” (journalism school), who will work cheaply, are hired.

Another cost-cutting measure that has been used for years by newspapers is the use of floaters and stringers. A floater is a part-time or full-time reporter who is not bound to any particular desk or specialty. The problem here is that one becomes mediocre at lots of different things, but not excellent at any of them. A stringer is a freelance writer hired by the newspaper on an as-needed basis and paid per article. Stringers sometimes have specialized knowledge (like the “College Park stringer” mentioned in the episode) and are often used to attend municipal meetings, cover local sporting events, and the like.

The editors discuss “20 inches” and “15 inches” at different times here. This refers to the length of an article, and is technically measured in “column-inches.” A column-inch is a one inch deep (long) and one newspaper

column wide. Reporters—particularly ambitious ones, or those for whom brevity is difficult—are forever trying to get more inches.

Some stories “go national” (are picked up by the national press because their appeal or newsworthiness transcends regional considerations, as with the 22 bodies story). Another reporter, however, contends that this story did not “have legs”—meaning that it did not become the source of ongoing follow-up pieces or deeper investigation. The ultimate story with “legs” was Watergate.

The ambitious reporter Scott Templeton (played by Tom McCarthy) is chagrined at being sent to “pull clips” and “check the morgue files” so he can write the “A-matter” on Ricardo’s history. He is being asked to check through the Sun’s archives (electronic files, physical clippings, and possibly even microfiche or film) to find previous articles about the principals in this story so he can provide the background material (which will be presented “up front”) against which the story can be told. It’s essential but unglamorous work that young reporters often draw.

The editors, late at night, determine that the Ricardo story “deserves a front” and will appear on the “front page, below the fold.” This means that the story is newsworthy enough to merit inclusion on the “jump page” or front page, but will not appear “above the fold” where screaming headlines and attention-grabbing images are shown. The “jump page” is so called because this is typically the only page in the first section from which articles “jump” (are continued on a subsequent page, indicated by a “jump line”—please see Ricardo on A12). In this configuration, six or seven articles can be included on the front page, with probably only one or two above the fold, and they all jump to the inside pages. Note that there has been some discussion about whether the jump page actually might refer to the page to which many of the jumps go.

Alma Gutierrez (Michelle Paress) is complimented on her ability to secure a quote from the article’s subject when Haynes says to her, “Good pull.” For her efforts, she receives a contributing line (or contrib line), which doesn’t

impress Templeton, but means she’ll receive something like “with additional reporting by Alma Gutierrez” under the main reporter’s byline (name) or (usually) at the conclusion of the piece. A “pull quote” is also the name for a quote that is featured in larger font surrounded by rules (lines, or a box) in an article to draw the reader in; Alma may have contributed a quote from the subject that was used in a pull.

Templeton states that he wishes to get out of Baltimore because it has “shit news,” but Alma is clearly invigorated by her work and feels that “the Sun is still a pretty good paper.” Templeton wants to move up and out—when asked

where, he answers, “The Times or Post, where else?” He’s referring to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the two most respected newspapers in the United States, widely considered the pinnacle of the profession.

“When did this break?” is asked of the Ricardo story. Bill Zorzi’s character (is he playing himself?) is asking when the story “became” news—not only when it occurred, but when someone realized it was newsworthy.

Finally, Templeton asks Haynes who is “doing the react piece” on the Ricardo story, because he sees that it could be a story that “has legs.” A react(ion) piece seeks to broaden the story by talking with associates of the principals, political figures, and others to assess the impact of the original story.

END OF EPISODE 51 NOTES.