Great News from the Idiot Box for Journalists!

David Simon’s simply awesome show The Wire – the sequel to the different but equally impressive Homicide: Life On The Street – will air its fifth, and final, season starting in January on HBO.

What does this mean for journalists? In a long profile in the New Yorker this week, it was revealed that the focus of this season will be … journalism!

Simon was a crime reporter for years with the Baltimore Sun. He picked up a healthy disdain for city politics and the systematic failures of government while on the crime beat, watching from inside the beast as Baltimore failed to lift itself out of its post-industrial malaise. He took a severance package and left the paper, having already written two books, The Corner and Homicide. Barry Levinson had optioned Homicide for TV, Simon began to write scripts for the show, and the rest is history.

This season will focus on reporters, editors and newsroom scenes. Viewers will see a newsroom – albeit through the prism of TV – from the writing desk of a seasoned and dyed-in-the-wool crime journalist.

So, if you have HBO, life is good. If not, rush out and rent seasons 1-4 of the show – each season has a thematic core, which in season 4 was kids – and relish the ear-perfect street dialogue, the portrayal of the decaying political machine, and just the overall greatness of the enterprise.