Q: How do you feel about HBO's deal with BET? Will it expose the show to a whole new audience? Are you
worried about edits and language censorship issues? Do you have any recourse? [R.G.]A: Is BET gonna edit the show? Uh oh. Can't see how that's going to work very well. It didn't do The Corner very much good. We'll have to see, I guess. The resale to BET is, again, part of that revenue stream that covers some of our production cost and gets us to the finish line. I know this: I live in fear that one day, I'll be on an airline flight and an edited version of a Wire episode will be shown. It will probably run about eighteen minutes, and no, I definitely won't ask for headphones. In my mind anyway, The Wire is comprised of the episodes as they air on HBO or as they can be seen on DVD. If someone edits them into something else, it's not quite The Wire, is it?
And no, I have no recourse. Nor do I seek such. As I said, the revenue stream is essential to our having survived this long.
Q: What parts of your journalism schooling and career have been helpful in dealing with the media in interviews or in writing and producing The Wire? [Howard Stivers]
A: I was not a journalism student at the University of Maryland. I worked on the school newspaper for three years, and later edited the campus daily. But I did not seek an education in journalism, which to my mind, is more of a learn-as-you-go craft than something deserving of an academic degree. I was a general studies major at College Park, making me, I suppose, an inch deep and a mile wide.
I don't think they offer that degree any more, actually. I think it was abolished after the Len Bias scandal in 1985, when after his overdose death, it was discovered that he, as a general studies major, had matriculated for four years and achieved only a handful of credits. But for me, I felt that varying my courseload between academic disciplines and learning about a variety of things was good preparation for newspapering. For bullshitting at parties, too.
Actual reporting taught me a lot about the world, I think. It got me out of my own box and put me into the lives of people very different than me. It forced me to question some assumptions of an otherwise ordinary suburban upbringing and to appreciate voices other than my own. I enjoyed reporting immensely and I still revel in it when I have the chance to research something, as I recently have had a chance to research a story unrelated to The Wire. Newspapering is the life of kings; Mencken said this. Apart from the fact that out-of-town-ownership and unwavering fealty to the stock price is slowly destroying American print journalism, there is still a bit of truth in Henry's hyperbole. But just a bit -- as the sonsabitches and moneychangers have at this point just about trashed the temple.
But again, to answer the question: Anything that got me out of the newsroom meeting people and learning about Baltimore has helped frame The Wire, obviously. So, too, have the ideas of people like Ed Burns and others, who I surely would not have met except as a city reporter.
How does this stuff help in interviews with the media? I dunno. I guess I like reporters and trust them more than the average person. I don't ordinarily worry about choosing my words carefully or being misquoted or whatever. Sometimes, I am misquoted -- though only on rare occasion are the errors by intent. I can count on one hand the number of times a reporter twisted anything intentionally; most times it's just bad assumptions or bad note-taking. Most of the time, though, I find that the more nuance and back-and-forth I offer in an interview, the better the resulting read. I mean, shit, it's not like we're doing anything we're ashamed of with this television show; most of my media contacts are benign, if not overwhelmingly positive. If I ever get caught in a Vatican City bathroom with an eight-ball of cocaine and four underaged hookers, I'm sure I'll find dealing with the media somewhat more stressful.
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