The Wire: The Rewatch... and all the pieces matter.

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > The Wire: The Rewatch... and all the pieces matter.

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Came across this article from 2012 on how Sonja Sohn used the show to start programs that help struggling youth in Baltimore

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifes...mKVQ_story.html

Apologies if it's been posted before, but I found it too inspiring not to share.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2015 20:21

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 21:59

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

President Obama and David Simon sat down together to talk about The Wire and the issues it raised

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=xWY79JCfhjw&app=desktop

# ¿ Mar 27, 2015 00:57

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Anyone watch Show Me A Hero last night? Not sure if it's appropriate to discuss the show here but there isn't a thread for the show yet.

# ¿ Aug 17, 2015 22:08

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Jerusalem posted:

I haven't seen it, would love to hear if it was any good/interesting.

So far it's excellent. Best thing I've seen from him since The Wire. It also is the closest thing to a spiritual successor to The Wire we've seen.

Might make a thread for it. Deserves exposure/discussion

theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Aug 18, 2015

# ¿ Aug 18, 2015 05:09

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

steakmancer posted:

Show Me a Hero has such incredible cinematography and Simon killing off Wasiscko at the end of the 5th episode according to a whole season review is so crazy

You should REALLY mention that your spoiler is for an unaired episode.

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 17:06

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Been burning through a rewatch of The Wire and just started season 5.

One that thing stuck out at me is that when Carcetti and his advisers were talking about whether to take the $50 million from the state for schools, it was never discussed that not doing so could harm them not just with education but Carcetti's focus on reducing crime as well., which at the beginning of Season 5 we see happen. Did they just not realize at the time that it would have those consequences? And if so why didn't Carcetti and them realize it?

# ¿ Aug 19, 2015 23:38

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Troll Bridgington posted:

If I remember correctly, Carcetti put his own ambition ahead of the city. The governor was only going to do the bailout if Carcetti faced public humiliation for taking the money, which would have damaged Carcetti's own plans of running for governor.

Right, but reducing crime stats was one of the two things he felt necessary to win as Governor. So it seems really bizarre that they didn't discuss how not taking the money could affect that goal. It just seems they weren't aware of that possibility, which seems odd that they would miss it (especially Norman who would have used that argument to convince Carcetti to take the money)

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 00:34

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Hard Clumping posted:

Basically yeah. I think both Norman and Nerese agreed that taking the money would ruin his plans to rise. I think the idea was that Carcetti was only going to get one term as mayor, and if he didn't make governor by the end of that term he was screwed, so out went all his grand promises near the end of season 4.

e:

A ton of weight was put on that $50 mil. Everybody seemed to think that taking the money would overshadow any good he did in terms of crime stats.

But how not taking the money would affect crime stats wasn't discussed. It was all about the schools.

I mean maybe they did discuss it somewhere but it was never shown, but from just watching the show it's easy to think it never crossed their mind.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 00:42

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Found this comment on Alan Sepinwall's blog from a guy who used to work in journalism. Pretty helpful reading for Season 5

quote:

Anonymous said...

I'm a former newspaper reporter. I never worked at a place as big as The Sun but here's how some things will work in the newsroom: (PART ONE)

1) There are many "desks" at a newspaper the size of The Sun. They are the same thing as a unit/division in the police department. Or a corner under the Barksdale/Malro chain of command. The City Desk is the desk that covers any and all news in the actual city of Baltimore. This may seem like the most important desk, but over years the years it has been most likely devalued as more and more people move to the county. Other news desks at the Sun are probably a County beat, a Statehouse beat, maybe even a DC-suburb beat depending upon how far they are trying to reach readers. The Sun might even have a DC-based national reporter or two. But all of their BIG news will come off the AP wire.

LINGO:
The newsroom has its own lingo. The lingo is more or less the same in any newsroom, but each one will have its own dialect.

INCHES: Newspaper stories are measured in "column inches." So any discussion about "inch length" means how long a story is. 15-18 inches is more-or-less your average news story. I'd imagine the story we got to see break from City Hall, one with a lot of background, was more in the 30-inch range.

BUDGET: The editor is asking his reporters what they are working on, when to expect it, how long it will be, etc. An editor needs this information fairly quickly to work on layout/design.

DEADLINE: Any of the phrases before a deadline means the schedule of deadline. The word "deadline" can mean a lot of things in a newsroom. There are actually a few different deadlines based upon the story being written.

STAFF RANK --

CUB REPORTERS -- young reporters who just broke in who are trying to rise up the ranks. Alma and Scott are the City Desk's cub reporters. They're also at the bar away from the veterans towards the end. Scott and Alma more-or-less got the poo poo gig in the story that got broken, the equivalent of Herc and Carver moving a judge's furniture. They also got "contributions by" at the end of a story as opposed to a byline signifying they took part in the actual writing of a story.

BEAT REPORTERS -- established reporters with a bigger beat. These include city hall, police, and not a transportation reporter.

REWRITE DESK -- Copy editor/rewriter. These follks are extremely anal grammar nerds know things like how to properly use the word "evacuate." Most smaller papers don't have a rewrite desk, which is why you'll see a lot of grammar errors at those papers.

CITY EDITOR -- Gus. He runs the City Desk. Thing of him as the Daniels of the newspaper office.

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF -- the guy who is in charge of all of the desks at the Sun.

MANAGING EDITOR -- Same kind of deal as the E-I-C, but he'll also be the guy who reports to corporate a lot more.

PUBLISHER -- not sure if The Wire has one, but most papers I worked for, the Publisher was ultimately in charge. All of the departments (news, ad sales, delivery, etc.) all reporter to him.
2:28 AM, January 07, 2008
Anonymous said...

PART 2 --

The newsroom look, pacing, language, etc. was 100% accurate. As you'd expect from someone like David Simon.

One adage in a newsroom is that the more you're at your desk, the less your doing your work. That's why Gus was so dismissive of Scott, who was hanging out at his desk. Reporters DO have to wait for a lot of phone calls, but Scott seemed like a perfect newsroom template: the entitled cub who went to a rich kid J-School program (Columbia) who thinks covering a city desk beat is completely beneath him. He also isn't doing anything looking to develop his own stories and prefers to pick assignments. Reporters do have ot make phone calls but the excuse of "I'm waiting for phone calls" usually means you're watching something on YouTube. A good reporter is rarely at his desk.

(He should try working at a weekly where there is literally NOTHING to write about.)

The City Hall beat was perfect. Agendas for meetings like that are super long, written in legalese and you need to be EXTRA sharp to catch something like what Gus caught. It's really easy to get burnt at a beat like that.

The guys above Gus had the perfect smug smarm of someone who has achieved a position of rank at a big daily newspaper. A lot of the folks I met at those positions tended to have a whole new level of arrogance. They are obsessed with awards.

The editor killing the story on race issues at U of Maryland was a guy killing a story at the behest of a friend. He also probably knows about impending layoffs and is angling for a tenure position at the UMD Journalism program.

One character they are missing: the oldhead columnist who has seniority (I'm guessing The Sun is a guild newspaper) who won't get laid off but hasn't written a decent column since Watergate, probably also has a severe alcohol and chain-smoking problem.

There are many reasons I got out of newspaper reporting. The primary one is that the people we'll see in The Wire will work 60-hour weeks and will make about $40,000 a year. Another reason is because it's next-to-impossible for someone to make a jump from a weekly newspaper to a decent daily. Editors at those places LOVE J-School grads as opposed to people who actually had to write at a crappy beat.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 01:14

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Jerusalem, you did an absolutely phenomenal job with the recaps (as well as everyone else), and picked up on tons of things I had never noticed before.

However there's a really significant comment made by Whiting that you seemed to have missed. It's from this section on Episode 2.

quote:

At the Sun, Whiting seriously declares that he wants the schools story to focus on the "Dickensian" aspects. Others in the meeting note that it would be wrong to take a simplistic approach to the issue, there are many aspects to explain the difficulties and problems faced in education, including the parenting or lack of parenting of these children and other societal pressures outside of the school system itself. Gus agrees that the schools could use a good "beating" from time to time but if they really want to address the issues, they need to actually address the issues and not focus in on one particular issue as if it was the end-all and be-all. Whiting's responses are full of buzzwords like "tangibles", and he gets support from Scott who agrees that you probably don't need a lot of context to focus on a classroom. Gus retorts that you need context for EVERYTHING but his snarky attitude (particularly a venomous comment about Pulitzer bait) finally pushes Whiting too far, as he complains that he isn't simpleminded like Gus is trying to imply and he knows about the problems in the school system because his wife volunteers at one. He wants the schools project to focus on the schools, and he thinks that Scott (the only person who backed him) should be the one to write it.

What you missed is Whiting's reasoning for simplicity. He's saying that's what readers want, and if you go too complex you lose people. As he says "who wants to read that?". And I could see why he might think that. Many people want to believe there's a simple solution to complex problems. It's disheartening to realize that the problems of our society involve a complex intricate web that one can't address through simple solutions, even though that's what politicians sell all the time. Also they want something easier to follow, and digestible. Yea he's totally in the wrong. But sadly he might be right that his approach will attract more readers.

In fact I wouldn't be surprised these are some of the very same arguments David Simon heard from networks when trying to sell The Wire.

Granted I haven't all your recaps after that episode, so maybe you cover that elsewhere.

theblackw0lf fucked around with this message at 03:32 on Aug 20, 2015

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 03:22

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

The journalism plot was somewhat based on Simon's interactions with the two top editors at the Sun, and the disagreements he had with them.

This is a really great article that goes into detail about their disagreements, and covers it in a more balanced way than Simon did, where you can see both perspectives.

Granted Season 5 was fictionalized and a lot was exaggerated from what really went down, but it touches on many of the same themes.

http://www.cjr.org/cover_story/secrets_of_the_city.php?page=all

# ¿ Aug 20, 2015 06:25

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

First episode of The Deuce is out on HBO on demand.

It's great

# ¿ Aug 25, 2017 16:32

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Dominic West plays Jean Valjean in the new version of Les Miserables airing on BBC this Sunday

# ¿ Dec 27, 2018 23:16

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

This article (which references The Wire) made me go back and start watching the show again. Started the first episode thinking "hey I'll just watch an episode or two" and ended up binging the first season again over a couple of days. (Fifth time watching)

God drat this show is so good.

It makes me frustrated we will likely never see a show of similar type, scope and quality ever again.

# ¿ May 27, 2019 07:20

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

https://twitter.com/HBO/status/1222950102425272320

# ¿ Jan 30, 2020 23:08

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

https://twitter.com/aodespair/status/1345404572546822144?s=21

# ¿ Jan 2, 2021 17:48

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Lid posted:

The original TV IV Wire thread

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=966400

Am I not seeing any other posts? I just see me and V-Men.

# ¿ May 25, 2022 21:15

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

Alan Sepinwall retrospective on The Wire. For the 20th anniversary which is today.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/tv-features/the-wire-20-anniversary-1361361/

# ¿ Jun 2, 2022 23:27

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

deep dish peat moss posted:

Season 4 is set in 2005/2006 where this kind of stuff was common practice in schools throughout the US, it was peak No Child Left Behind era. I graduated in 2005 and throughout highschool we had an entire class that we all attended for several hours a week that literally taught us how to cheat at standardized tests - they taught us about common answer patterns and all kinds of "test-taking strategies" like how to deduce the right answer without even reading the question (e.g. "if one answer is significantly longer than the others it's virtually guaranteed to be the right answer, so select it and skip the question"). It was all focused around English and Math no matter what teacher was teaching it, because those were the only things our standardized tests covered. Also it was generally taught by teachers of other subjects (science, non-English languages, art, social studies, history, etc) so that the English/Math teachers could keep teaching us English & Math like normal.

Does this mean it�s improved?

# ¿ Feb 28, 2024 19:29

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 21:59

theblackw0lf: Apr 15, 2003; "...creating a vision of the sort of society you want to have in miniature"

https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/david-simon-hbo-series-child-protective-services-1235932245/

https://x.com/variety/status/1765437380368982223?s=46

�The project is based on a series of New Yorker articles written by MacFarquhar. The official description states that the show "will examine the foster care and child protective service systems from the viewpoint of family court judges and lawyers, as well as social workers, caretakers, mothers, and the children themselves, and will probe the risks and benefits of removing children from families of origin."

# ¿ Mar 6, 2024 19:24

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