An Industry Coming Down To The Wire

The newspaper industry struggles to maintain its quality in a growing technological

media environment. David Simons The Wire fails to convey the catalyst of the newspaper
industrys downfallsocial media and the internet; however, the television series effectively
portrays the results that these problems create in the newsroom. Simons The Baltimore Sun
experiences employee buyouts, failures in investigative journalism, and an ignorance of relevant
news, which result from the economic constraints that the growing world of technology creates.
The Suns journalists and executives bend ethical boundaries to further the chances of gaining
national news attention and increasing the papers circulation. Scott Templetons fabrication of
news results from the collapse in iron core news. Director of Harvard Universitys Shorenstein
Center Alex S. Jones explains the iron core news has four tiers: bearing witness, following up on
the story, explanatory journalism, and investigative reporting. The Wire successfully portrays
the negative effects of a collapsing hierarchy of iron core news.
Newsroom buyouts increase the constraints on employees as fewer journalists report on
an increasing number of institutions, decreasing the quality of firsthand news coverage and
hindering further investigations on most stories. James Whiting, executive director of The Sun,
articulates the constraint that buyouts create: We are, quite simply, going to have to find ways
to do more with less (The Wire, Episode 3). As a result, the consolidated newsroom
occasionally misses coverage on city affairs. The federal court reporter misses a press
conference on the grand jury indictment of Clay Davis because he now reports on both federal
and state courts after the last round of buyouts. Another negative result from buyouts appears
when Scott Templetons lack of knowledge and contacts within the police department forces the
recently bought out Roger Twigg to utilize his connections he had built up over the years in
order to complete the story on Cedric Daniels looking to replace Commissioner Ervin Burrell.
Younger, less experienced, and less expensive journalists replace senior members of the
newsroom along with their relationships with sources. Twigg, forced to accept a buyout, tells
Gus Haynes and other members of the newsroom apparently they can hire one and a half twenty
somethings for what it costs to keep me in print (The Wire, Episode 3). Previously, the
economic model of the industry allowed for quality news that was expensive to produce;
conversely, with todays economic constraints, the demand of the audience dictates the news
(Jones, 2009, p.62). Professor Markus Prior (2007) points out that print media excludes people
with low cognitive abilities and that Americans increasingly follow entertainment rather than the
news. The implications of Prior and Jones findings point to the conclusion that newspapers are
forced to either replace hard news with soft news or make massive cuts in the newsroom to keep
hard news reporting alive.
Newspapers like The Sun, desperate to maintain the revenues they brought in before the
1990s, cut their staff and content of their newspapers, not realizing that the destruction of the
newspaper will come from within their own infrastructure. With fewer journalists covering the
first tier of the iron core news, following up on stories is rare and investigative reporting nearly
extinct. A lack of investigative reporting increases the emphasis on officialdom that newspapers
have, allowing police detective Jimmy McNulty to use this relationship to shine light on the fake
homeless serial killer. McNulty abuses the fact that the media increasingly relies upon the other
to assist in the accomplishment of its own task (Cook, 2005, p. 92). The lack of investigative
reporting and emphasis on official sources allows the falsified story of a homeless serial killer to
gain attention. The decrepit structure of the news environment leads to Scott Templetons
fabrication of events connected with the serial killer such as the killers phone call to Templeton
and the exaggerated interview with the homeless marine. Templetons fabrications enflame the
story and bury all other stories like education and drug violence. Clay Davis corruption charges
disappear from the front pages and the death of locally known criminal Omar Little does not
even make the paper. Whiting explains to Haynes the reasoning behind writing on the homeless
murders: I dont see the school project as yielding the same kind of impact as our attention to
homelessness can (The Wire, Episode 6). The Suns executive editors place more importance
on gaining national attention than they do on keeping to the ethical principles of journalism. Gus
Haynes continually questions Templetons unnamed sources, but is overruled by executives
James Whiting and Thomas Klebanow. Templetons work goes unpunished, and the false stories
he fueled were successful in completely redirecting Baltimore Mayor Carcettis focus and budget
from schools to the police department.
The Wires portrayal of the newspaper industry accurately depicts the results of a
declining newspaper industry. From the buyouts The Sun experienced to the reliance on official
sources, David Simon depicts a news environment that glosses over the real issues of a city just
to find a story to win national recognition and further an executive or journalists career.
Templetons homeless stories cover the front pages of The Sun, burying the failing education
system, Clay Davis indictment, and Omar Littles murder. The Sun provides an example of how
the infrastructure of the newsroom will lead to the downfall of the news industry. With fewer
journalists, the quality of news will decline, investigative reporting will disappear, and a need for
economic success will bully ethical principles into silence.