David Simon Interview
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6:51 AM | Posted in
I have to confess, I've never actually seen an episode of "The Wire"--I can't afford HBO--even though I've heard nothing but unequivocal praise for it, and after watching this interview with the show's creator, David Simon, on "Bill Moyers' Journal," I really feel like I should watch it . . . like, right now. But, even more than that, I feel educated by the experience of seeing this interview, and what's really strange about it is . . . I've known about all of the topics he expounded upon in the interview: the merits of drug decriminalization, the effects of Wall Street's policies on the rest of the U.S.--he shouldn't be so surprised that what "The Wire" had to say about Enron and Global Crossing portending a much wider economic pain throughout the nation could actually end up happening; it was a reasonable extrapolation of the facts in an accurate context--the inherent failures of institutions such as police departments and schools due to, among other things, personal ambition and lack of institutional memory, the failure of the news media to document these issues and highlight those institutional memory lapses, and how that has resulted in large parts of America becoming forgotten. David Simon still manages, however, to neatly package within the span of an hour all of these various threads and tie them together quite nicely and in such a way that you understand them in a more visceral manner than, say, the intellectual manner one, such as me, for instance, might have conceived before. And it's not that you didn't feel it before, it just becomes that much more ingrained afterward. I can see rather easily after having watched this program how "The Wire" became such a critical success. Even if it is just a conversation between a talk show host and a television writer/producer, there is a certain gravity, breadth, and depth to their discussion that goes well beyond what passes for public discourse among many people and in much of the media today, and it should be appreciated for doing just that.

There are two things I want to add to Mr. Simon's views:
  1. This is how the unforgotten country starts caring about what happens to brown and black people in our nation's inner cities. It spreads to other places where there isn't nearly as much police presence, if any, and thereby breaks that containment he was talking about.
  2. I partially disagree with what he said about the media. In the interview, he did lay some of the blame for the demise of newspapers on the Internet, but I'm still not convinced that it possesses even the limited culpability that he ascribes to it. Television and radio for decades have existed entirely on ad-based revenues to generate their news, and cable news has another revenue stream to counter their comparatively smaller ad revenue base (Of course, these mediums range anywhere from tolerable infotainment to unbelievably terrible infotainment, but network television and radio news didn't used to be that way). Newspapers, for their part, weathered the presence of these interlopers well. Jack Shafer, for his part, has his own considerable thoughts on this subject. (Honor System note: I swear I came up with the previous part about TV, radio, and cable news on my own. I didn't think to look at Shafer's columns--par. 16 of the second column is of pertinence here--until after I wrote that.) What I'm trying to say is that there doesn't seem to be anything I can see that can't make Mr. Simon's other partial explanation--the publishers' and editors' lack of attention to their product from bad editorial decisions and content to firing beat reporters and not replacing them while sucking down a hefty 37% profit (as Simon described regarding his own buyout situation with the Baltimore Sun)--the whole explanation.
Once again, it's well worth an hour of your time if you can spare it to give a listen. "Bill Moyers' Journal" even has an extra piece of the interview here (If Moyers' implied comparison of "The Wire" to "The Grapes of Wrath" is accurate, that just makes it even more essential that I watch it). All right, enough of me sellin' this damn thing. Enlighten yourself, already!



P.S. I'm well aware of the feud between Bill Moyers and Jack Shafer (Hell, what did you think made me bring him up in the first place . . . besides the germaine media criticism, I guess?). Even though I watch Moyers' show and read Shafer's Pressbox column in Slate, I gotta give this particular fight to Shafer. He's got the ammo (re: evidence), and Moyers doesn't seem much like bringing up the good ol' days of being on the other side of the press gaggle. It's too bad, too, because this could have had the makings of a halfway decent, one-sided flame war. For instance, is it just me or is the title of Shafer's first column on the subject, "The Intolerable Smugness of Bill Moyers," just plain hilarious? I mean, I catch myself quite literally laughing out loud every time I read it, and I'm not entirely sure why. It just seems so obviously over-the-top, but when you read the columns Jack writes about Bill, you're pretty sure at that point it's meant to be taken seriously. And I love the way Moyers farts back in his general direction--in the third link above--that Shafer's first column--Jack wrote a second before Moyers responded to the first--was an "intemperate attack." Really? Have you read Shafer's columns much, Bill? OK, that last one wasn't exactly fair as that was an article about how so many other people were dumping huge, steaming piles of pachydermal excrement on the Sulzberger family tree, but that title was just too good to pass up. Que sera, eh?
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1 Response to "David Simon Interview"

  1. CurrentFlow On April 20, 2009 at 2:23 AM

    Great post man. I have seen every episode of The Wire, and now I'm intrigued to watch the Bill Moyer's interview.

     

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