David Simon on cutting "The Wire"

As people are more fearful than ever of losing their jobs, it seems like the problem would only get worse.

At the time that I was at the Sun, there were three guys who made stuff up and got caught. Only three that got caught, but there were three, and I was there for 12 years. And by the way, one of them was heartbreaking. It was a guy who made up a quote in an obit. It was a cry for help if nothing else. He was a good guy.

The day that I took the buyout and left, I told John Carroll, I said, everyone in your newsroom knows that this guy's got a problem. You've already retracted two stories. You had to apologize to the mayor of Baltimore for a story that wasn't true. You'd better look at it, John. You may win a Pulitzer; you may have to give it back.

And he said -- this is the line, I'll never forget it -- he said, "Well, 24 hires out of 25 is pretty damn good, don't you think?" And I said, "Yep. I agree." I shook hands with him. I gave the warning. It didn't cost me anything because I was getting out of journalism. Five years later, I'm in an editing suite in New York, I'm working on "The Corner" and [a Sun reporter] calls me and says, "He did it again."

[Editor's Note: Accounts of the controversy at the Sun can be read here and here.]

How do you make stuff up that the people in question are clearly going to dispute?

You ever seen somebody who, the lie just keeps getting bigger and bigger? You start out just cleaning up a quote. I think it starts small. But here's the thing -- at that moment, I'm out of journalism, I'm not beholden to anybody -- I called the publisher of the Baltimore Sun, and he didn't call me back. John [Carroll] called and said, "Well, you're biased, you're bitter, you're angry. It was his honest mistake." I said, "John, how can it be an honest mistake?" And John said to me, "Well, it's in his notepad." That's always the last refuge of every scoundrel in journalism. "I don't know what to tell you, sir, it's in my notepad." But when he said that, I said, "John, you've already had to retract two stories from this guy, and now this is three."

This is John Carroll. I know he's Mr. Pulitzer, I know he stood up like a hero at the Los Angeles Times when they were being threatened with cutbacks -- though, by the way, he didn't at the Baltimore Sun; he was one of many people who took a buyout. But when the chips were down in L.A., he did the right thing, and God bless him. But at that moment I said, "John, if I was the editor of a major metropolitan daily and I had to retract three stories by the same reporter, I would remember it until the day I fucking died."

I went to work at the Baltimore Sun when I was 21 years old. I don't have many temples, but I got one, and you guys are changing money in it.

Well, that makes you Jesus, though.

Oh, I don't mean that. That was a bad metaphor. Oops. I have a lot of complexes, but I don't have a Jesus complex. I'm too deep into shit.

Do you ever have times when you think, "Enough with this stuff. I can't handle stirring the pot anymore"? I mean, do you feel sure that you'll effect change through being outspoken about this stuff?

No, no. Have you been watching "The Wire"? [Laughs.] I'm not effecting change in the slightest. On the other hand, I feel as if I've been able to, in my journalism, in storytelling, in television, and in the way I conduct my life, I've been able to speak openly and aggressively about anything that mattered to me.

In my mind and in the mind of the writers, the season 5 story was about a lot of things. The über-theme, the real lesson to the story, has less to do with the fabricator or even with the editors tolerating sloppy journalism or being obsessed with prizes. It has to do with what isn't on the screen.

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