The Wire 53: Buy Outs, Lies and getting on the Front Page

The lies just keep rolling out of Templeton. Now he is just pulling quotes out of his ass.

I also love the scene when Guttierez wrote an article based on a tip from McNulty, and thought it was going to get prime real estate on the front page. The next morning the poor girl gets up at 5am only to find her prized scribe buried in the Metro section. I can’t tell you how many times that happened to me. I remember a time I called all my friends, colleagues and family members that I had this really good article with an interview with a high profile politician that was going to appear on the front page. When I saw the paper the next day, my article appeared in the last page of the lifestyles section. I didn’t understand why at the time, but I was told later by my editor that the “high profile politician” was having second thoughts about having his quotes splashed on the front page, although everything he said was true. Go figure.

We are also seeing the layoffs in the newsroom, which is unfortunately reality with all newspapers. More on this as the story lines continue…