I recently read an article by David Simon. I’m sure many of you know of him. He is a journalist and creator of The Wire. It’s quite a a scary piece, written for the Washington Post, about where we’re left after the death of investigative reporting.
Police then, as now, were difficult about sharing the details of a case with a reporter, even if it was public information; but the culture of asserting one’s rights in the face of authority was strong.
To be a police reporter in such a climate was to be a prince of the city, and to be a citizen of such a city was to know that you were not residing in a police state. But no longer — not in Baltimore and, I am guessing, not in any city where print journalism spent the 1980s and ’90s taking profits and then, in the decade that followed, impaling itself on the Internet.
Writing like David’s has gravity, because it has the mass of substance behind it.
(via Kottke) Also: I think I’m going to have to watch The Wire now.