Newspapers and Such.

HBO is awesome.

HELLO KITTIES!
This is my response to Jim King who runs The Wire HBO group @ Yahoo.

Doesn't anyone have an opinion about David Simon's recent TV appearances and speeches? Seems like his "Wire" street cred is taking him into the realm of national spokesperson about the war on drugs and the decline of journalism.

Jim

Jim,
Great observation about David Simon. This is exactly what is needed at this time. I have watched every single speech. However, I don't believe there are that many people out there (as opposed to those who agree with Simon) that actually understand what he is trying to say in regard to content. Sure, as a consumer it is great that Huffingtonpost.com is a clearing house for some good reporting. However, what happens when that free content dries up all of sudden because those providing the content (aka newspapers), go out of business or try to do "more with less". Which as Simon puts it, is really "less with less".

Another claim that Simon makes is that bloggers really don't cover the details and "game" of city hall even if they were to show up at the municipal meetings. Even if they were there for the "Kabuki Dance", what will that tell the so called Blogger-Citizen journalist if that person did not know the what was happening behind the curtain? A paid professional reporter learns his or her beat, makes contacts and works with his or her editor to pull together good pieces of journalism. Some days, as Simon points out, this means working 14 or 15 hours and during those long days some of the best information is gathered while sharing a beer with a municipal worker i.e. a cop, a middle manager or a low rung bureaucrat.

Being a reporter is actually one of the most important roles in a democracy. People should be trained for this job in a 4 year institution or through a equally long term working under the tutelage of a veteran reporter or possibly both. Either way, without pay and resources, no one is going to cover city hall as good as WE need them too cover in order for our democracy to function and for us to be thoroughly informed.

Good topic Jim. Thanks for bringing it up.

In TheWireHBO@yahoogroups.com