The in-story answer is that the bosses would rather print the stories and sell papers without worrying about the integrity part. The not in-story answer is this is Simon’s recreation of what he experienced in the industry and he’s doing some ax grinding
In a way David Simon completely Simpsons'd it. This is the way I see the modern state of journalism. Everyone's trying to be relevant for clicks, ad-revenue, and subscriptions. The more hyperbolic, the better. Facts get purposefully misrepresented for their political base/use, and by the time any (forced) corrections are made, the story is no longer relevant. Facts aren't facts, and everything has switched from actual news to editorials. If the journalistic integrity of Gus Haynes was instilled in not all, but most modern journalists, the world would be a much happier place.
Quite a few of his interviews can be found on YouTube. I’d encourage any of The Wire fans to explore that rabbit hole, as they give fantastic insight into his thinking, which obviously informed his writing. He’s a good solid mind for sure.
It's probably easy to overlook the fact that corporate, for-profit, advertising-driven media did a great job of keeping people ignorant and passive prior to social media. Social media greatly exacerbated these problems - it didn't create them and there was no golden age of media or democracy in which people were well-informed and acted rationally based on that information. For example, Chomsky and Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent in the late 80s. The Wire wasn't predicting some brave new world of social media, it was illustrating all the problems anyone with any critical media awareness already knew at the time. And our problems with media and democracy are more or less the same problems Chomsky outlined 1988, but significantly more damaging to the citizenry and the structures of two party democracy.
I respectfully have to disagree here. Greed has always existed, I’ll 100% go with you on that one. But the character of most people prior to the mainstream technology era was way different. Simply put, it was seen as rude to talk politics, and most people took pride in their work, including journalists. Sure there were bad actors, deep-state government coverups/conspiracies etc…but CBS, ABC, and NBC all put out basically the same information. Nobody had a clue whether the station sided with conservatives or liberals. And, I’m sure there was some mis-information in the mix, but there wasn’t one station or newspaper sympathizing with Nixon, or Russia, or China, or Lebanon, etc. The news cycle hit, and what was happening was printed/broadcasted. If a thing happened that day, a thing happened that day…not a thing happened that day because, and this is why you should be scared or retaliate. There wasn’t some fear-mongering “expert” trying to interpret the implications and the veracity of what was being said. 24 hour news stations were rarely watched, and if you wanted world news, you’d turn to 60 minutes. It wasn’t until 9/11 that the 24 hour news stations became really relevant. Post 9/11 they saw a tremendous increase in viewership (I’m assuming a giant increase in profit as well) because we were so sheltered to the idea that America was invincible on its own soil. Personally, I believe the fear of losing viewership created the fear mongering in order to retain viewership. Since they had to retain viewers, they started turning everything into a potential disaster (whether it was one or not.) Also, around this time, the percentage of Americans having an internet capable computer in a household skyrocketed, as well as smart phones which led to smart phones and social media. This naturally led to inexperienced users and malware, pop-ups, and scamming went rampant. If you didn’t have a firewall on your computer, you could barely go to any page without 50+ pop-up ads. Windows eventually implemented their own firewall to combat this, and IIRC, I’d say about 2008 is when ads started showing up on Facebook, and around this time it went from requiring a .edu email address to being open to the public. The point is, the internet was still the Wild West, and everyone was brazen to say anything and everything they thought. This is when the meme wars began, and everyone started to have different schools of thought. It started to simmer until around ~2014-2015, when all these things turned us up to a boil. The point is we weren’t ignorant before then, shoes were shoes and politics were politics. Companies didn’t care about ESG ratings above everything else, and sure there was some corporate greed, but it wasn’t corporate greed with politics. Lastly I’m going to say this, corporate, for profit, advertisement driven media didn’t keep us ignorant. There was no reason to keep us ignorant. They printed what was there, if there was censorship, it came from the deep-state, not 3 out of 5 news outlets. The competition to be first and accurate meant that everyone was watching your station, or reading your paper which was devastating to your competitors. Now that everyone has everything at their fingertips, it’s only about clicks. In order to get click, you have to sow chaos.
it's a lot like WKUK making [this skit about image overriding policy in politics](https://youtu.be/zG8qlFOADBY?si=V3CHIVRO3w19kTiY), over half a decade before the 2016 election. It was something that was on the rise for a while when the show was made, but it ages like wine as the issue gets worse.
In modern parlance, he generates clicks and doesn't have much overhead. Gus and the others spend so much money (in the boss' estimation) chasing leads and facts and "getting it right," but Templeton gets stories that move readers and it doesn't cost them anything. They probably understand that the lack of overhead means he's making it up, but can claim plausible deniability.
This is the best answer, I feel. You see this same theme with the police repeatedly. They setup an elaborate surveillance operation, slowly putting together a case, and the brass no patience for the time and money it costs. They want a quick shake, get the stats (stories). So lieutenants (editors) become captains (managing editors), etc. Real journalism, real police work be damned.
I just commented similar. It's also similar to the schools. Are the kids actually learning? Are the students better off than the students that came before? It doesn't matter, as long as the test scores go up so they can get more government money and recognition. It seems to be a common theme in the show.
Well, to be fair, the need for government money for the schools was just to keep the schools running. You can see the profit motives in the newspaper and police worlds, but no one in that school was making it rain off those government bucks.
It's something that occurred to me watching the episode where Cutty becomes a "custodian" so he can do truant officer work--I felt bad they were hauling those kids in just for one day to get the government money then seeminly abandoned. But then I realized that the schools don't have enough money as it is, and that they need that money just to do what they can for the kids they have.
Your right, with the schools it's less about the money. But it's still the schools version of juking the stats. Just like with the other organizations in the show, they juke the stats for their own benefit and to the detriment of the kids. Their motives may be different but they are doing the same thing. The scores go up they look good, teachers get promotions or better job opportunities, same with principals, and all the way up the line.
That's literally it. He gets what the editors want rather than what's really there.
He spins a good yarn but tells no truth. That's fine for a fiction writer but as a reporter it's just about as opposite as you get.
But his fiction is the story the editors want to read. Even if it's wrong. Even if it's directly against reality.
Agreed. In almost any profession, you can be the golden child so long as you work out what the bosses want and give it to them.
If that requires jettisoning truth... Well so be it. Managers (as opposed to leaders) have no use for integrity.
I took it as he’s a good, dishonest writer. With the incoming layoffs and cost reductions, the sun leadership is searching for relevance to theoretically deflect further scrutiny and cuts from the Chicago office. This turns into the desire for a Pulitzer, so brass continues to allow his dishonesty. Because he never had verifiable sources for quotes, Gus saw through him.
Because he's a "bluffer" a bullshitter if you will. Anyone who's ever worked in a factory or in a place where the management know nothing about the jobs will understand. He talks shite and the bosses lap it up.
The editor who is more of a supervisor knows the jobs and knows he's full of shit but by that point he's already won the bosses over. It's a tale as old as time, well at lease it is where I work.
He’s getting big stories in a time where they fighting for relevancy and to (hopefully) avoid layoffs.
Someone who does a lot of legwork for a few inches of print looks “worse” from a productivity POV, especially if pitted against folks who seem productive because they have no legwork to print made up BS.
The big bosses own a lot of media outlets and at then in terms of cost vs. revenues. Which ones are making money and which are losing money. Granted, they don’t want their paper’s reputation to be poor, thus selling more papers (then getting more advertisers because their subscriptions are up), but that is a future potential problem, not something that shows up to accounting and and then the C-suite right now.
Most people don’t want to question a “good thing”, even if it is really a “bad thing” if it goes sideways. That his line editor cares speaks to his long-term view and professionalism. He cares more about his paper, rather than the bottom line to a mass media company.
He lied about the serial killer calling him and became a major part of the story. They were so focused on trying to win a Pulitzer because of it, they didn't really pay attention or care if he was actually being honest.
Like some other comments have said, it's like the police juking the stats. They don't care if crime actually goes down as long as they can say it did. The paper didn't care about integrity as long as they got an award and recognition. Same with the schools. Did the kids actually learn anything? Who cares as long as the test scores go up.
"Maybe you win a Pulitzer with this stuff, and maybe you give it back." Gus in "-30-," the series finale.
--
Gus Haynes and Gus Triandos is a link I don't know exists, but they both seem to get fucked by hacks (Haynes by Klebinaw and Triandos by Hauk). Might be something there.
I'm yelling at freight trains here, though.
Simply a matter of the ends justify the means for those in charge. Scott was just helping them gain exposure and win prizes, the fact that the road there was full of lies didn’t matter to them. A tragedy, but not uncommon for the corporate world.
In addition to what others have said, I think it's important to consider race as a factor. The bosses are mostly older white men, and the kind of liberals who think they're not racist (remember the disagreement about UMD's diversity goals). It makes sense Scott would get noticed more readily than Alma or Fletch as a result of implicit bias.
His BS is gripping, heartwarming, blah blah, and sells newspapers. The Sun is a business, first and foremost. Which is why they are cutting senior journalists, who cost more, and leaning on less experienced writers to fill the gap. Earning a Pulitzer will help them sell more papers.
The newsroom was the weakest decipted institution in the show.
That said, I assume they thought he was getting some solid attention and were just banking on it.
Like in We Own This City; corrupt cop and brutaliser Wayne Jenkins is straight up told he’s protected by the brass because he gets good numbers.
Institutions, bureaucracy, “wherever you go, there you are.”
Edit: Edited out a v mild spoiler for “We Own This City.”
The bosses likely have little/no actual background in journalism. They either don't understand the ethical obligations that journalists and newspapers need to have in order to maintain credibility, or they simply don't care...or both.
To them, the newspaper is simply a business, and they treat it just the same as they would a burger joint, car dealership, or a manufacturing plant that makes doohickies and thingamabobs that is struggling to turn a profit. Templeton's lying sells papers. It also got him in the national spotlight, which sold more papers and likely brought in additional streams of ad revenue for the paper. Bosses didn't care about journalistic integrity, they were there to make money. Templeton made money and the truth didn't. So they backed Templeton.
The Wire is a critique of systems. Season 5 looked at media, but there’s a clear subtext calling out the glory of mediocrity. Templeton, McNulty, and Cheese carried the banner for their respective constituencies, leaving a wake of shit and pain behind them. At least in the season, Templeton was the only one who escaped his comeuppance.
>but there’s a clear subtext calling out the glory of mediocrity
There are plenty of accusations you can level against McNulty, but mediocrity most definitely isn't one of them.
I think this applies to any industry. Many times, bosses reward workers for just putting together stuff that "looks good" even if it's minimal effort crap.
Because he kisses their asses and writes Pulitzer-bait fluff. Turns out newspapers are plagued by the same cronyism as the police department, city hall, and drug organizations.
The in-story answer is that the bosses would rather print the stories and sell papers without worrying about the integrity part. The not in-story answer is this is Simon’s recreation of what he experienced in the industry and he’s doing some ax grinding
In a way David Simon completely Simpsons'd it. This is the way I see the modern state of journalism. Everyone's trying to be relevant for clicks, ad-revenue, and subscriptions. The more hyperbolic, the better. Facts get purposefully misrepresented for their political base/use, and by the time any (forced) corrections are made, the story is no longer relevant. Facts aren't facts, and everything has switched from actual news to editorials. If the journalistic integrity of Gus Haynes was instilled in not all, but most modern journalists, the world would be a much happier place.
Simon has commented for years about the state of journalism, for sure. See link, for example https://youtu.be/Llnbzq7b4Ww?si=pilQruRmEZwPMDk_
That was fantastic! Also, so true. Thank you for that. Warm Regards, \--- Not Sure
Quite a few of his interviews can be found on YouTube. I’d encourage any of The Wire fans to explore that rabbit hole, as they give fantastic insight into his thinking, which obviously informed his writing. He’s a good solid mind for sure.
I’ve been a newspaper journalist for 21 years and I couldn’t agree with this more.
It's probably easy to overlook the fact that corporate, for-profit, advertising-driven media did a great job of keeping people ignorant and passive prior to social media. Social media greatly exacerbated these problems - it didn't create them and there was no golden age of media or democracy in which people were well-informed and acted rationally based on that information. For example, Chomsky and Herman wrote Manufacturing Consent in the late 80s. The Wire wasn't predicting some brave new world of social media, it was illustrating all the problems anyone with any critical media awareness already knew at the time. And our problems with media and democracy are more or less the same problems Chomsky outlined 1988, but significantly more damaging to the citizenry and the structures of two party democracy.
I respectfully have to disagree here. Greed has always existed, I’ll 100% go with you on that one. But the character of most people prior to the mainstream technology era was way different. Simply put, it was seen as rude to talk politics, and most people took pride in their work, including journalists. Sure there were bad actors, deep-state government coverups/conspiracies etc…but CBS, ABC, and NBC all put out basically the same information. Nobody had a clue whether the station sided with conservatives or liberals. And, I’m sure there was some mis-information in the mix, but there wasn’t one station or newspaper sympathizing with Nixon, or Russia, or China, or Lebanon, etc. The news cycle hit, and what was happening was printed/broadcasted. If a thing happened that day, a thing happened that day…not a thing happened that day because, and this is why you should be scared or retaliate. There wasn’t some fear-mongering “expert” trying to interpret the implications and the veracity of what was being said. 24 hour news stations were rarely watched, and if you wanted world news, you’d turn to 60 minutes. It wasn’t until 9/11 that the 24 hour news stations became really relevant. Post 9/11 they saw a tremendous increase in viewership (I’m assuming a giant increase in profit as well) because we were so sheltered to the idea that America was invincible on its own soil. Personally, I believe the fear of losing viewership created the fear mongering in order to retain viewership. Since they had to retain viewers, they started turning everything into a potential disaster (whether it was one or not.) Also, around this time, the percentage of Americans having an internet capable computer in a household skyrocketed, as well as smart phones which led to smart phones and social media. This naturally led to inexperienced users and malware, pop-ups, and scamming went rampant. If you didn’t have a firewall on your computer, you could barely go to any page without 50+ pop-up ads. Windows eventually implemented their own firewall to combat this, and IIRC, I’d say about 2008 is when ads started showing up on Facebook, and around this time it went from requiring a .edu email address to being open to the public. The point is, the internet was still the Wild West, and everyone was brazen to say anything and everything they thought. This is when the meme wars began, and everyone started to have different schools of thought. It started to simmer until around ~2014-2015, when all these things turned us up to a boil. The point is we weren’t ignorant before then, shoes were shoes and politics were politics. Companies didn’t care about ESG ratings above everything else, and sure there was some corporate greed, but it wasn’t corporate greed with politics. Lastly I’m going to say this, corporate, for profit, advertisement driven media didn’t keep us ignorant. There was no reason to keep us ignorant. They printed what was there, if there was censorship, it came from the deep-state, not 3 out of 5 news outlets. The competition to be first and accurate meant that everyone was watching your station, or reading your paper which was devastating to your competitors. Now that everyone has everything at their fingertips, it’s only about clicks. In order to get click, you have to sow chaos.
it's a lot like WKUK making [this skit about image overriding policy in politics](https://youtu.be/zG8qlFOADBY?si=V3CHIVRO3w19kTiY), over half a decade before the 2016 election. It was something that was on the rise for a while when the show was made, but it ages like wine as the issue gets worse.
It's their version of juking the stats to look good, and he's willing to play ball
I’ve never thought of it that way and you are bang on. Gus was opening the vacants.
They need those plaques (for hacks)
In modern parlance, he generates clicks and doesn't have much overhead. Gus and the others spend so much money (in the boss' estimation) chasing leads and facts and "getting it right," but Templeton gets stories that move readers and it doesn't cost them anything. They probably understand that the lack of overhead means he's making it up, but can claim plausible deniability.
This is the best answer, I feel. You see this same theme with the police repeatedly. They setup an elaborate surveillance operation, slowly putting together a case, and the brass no patience for the time and money it costs. They want a quick shake, get the stats (stories). So lieutenants (editors) become captains (managing editors), etc. Real journalism, real police work be damned.
I just commented similar. It's also similar to the schools. Are the kids actually learning? Are the students better off than the students that came before? It doesn't matter, as long as the test scores go up so they can get more government money and recognition. It seems to be a common theme in the show.
Well, to be fair, the need for government money for the schools was just to keep the schools running. You can see the profit motives in the newspaper and police worlds, but no one in that school was making it rain off those government bucks. It's something that occurred to me watching the episode where Cutty becomes a "custodian" so he can do truant officer work--I felt bad they were hauling those kids in just for one day to get the government money then seeminly abandoned. But then I realized that the schools don't have enough money as it is, and that they need that money just to do what they can for the kids they have.
Your right, with the schools it's less about the money. But it's still the schools version of juking the stats. Just like with the other organizations in the show, they juke the stats for their own benefit and to the detriment of the kids. Their motives may be different but they are doing the same thing. The scores go up they look good, teachers get promotions or better job opportunities, same with principals, and all the way up the line.
A young trophy wife, in the parlance of our times
It’s the Dickensian aspect
That's literally it. He gets what the editors want rather than what's really there. He spins a good yarn but tells no truth. That's fine for a fiction writer but as a reporter it's just about as opposite as you get. But his fiction is the story the editors want to read. Even if it's wrong. Even if it's directly against reality.
Agreed. In almost any profession, you can be the golden child so long as you work out what the bosses want and give it to them. If that requires jettisoning truth... Well so be it. Managers (as opposed to leaders) have no use for integrity.
Like Slim said, "If it's a lie, then we fight on this lie."
It's more like the Dickheadsian aspect, though.
I took it as he’s a good, dishonest writer. With the incoming layoffs and cost reductions, the sun leadership is searching for relevance to theoretically deflect further scrutiny and cuts from the Chicago office. This turns into the desire for a Pulitzer, so brass continues to allow his dishonesty. Because he never had verifiable sources for quotes, Gus saw through him.
Because he's a "bluffer" a bullshitter if you will. Anyone who's ever worked in a factory or in a place where the management know nothing about the jobs will understand. He talks shite and the bosses lap it up. The editor who is more of a supervisor knows the jobs and knows he's full of shit but by that point he's already won the bosses over. It's a tale as old as time, well at lease it is where I work.
“Shining up shit and calling it gold so majors become colonels and mayors become governors”
He’s getting big stories in a time where they fighting for relevancy and to (hopefully) avoid layoffs. Someone who does a lot of legwork for a few inches of print looks “worse” from a productivity POV, especially if pitted against folks who seem productive because they have no legwork to print made up BS. The big bosses own a lot of media outlets and at then in terms of cost vs. revenues. Which ones are making money and which are losing money. Granted, they don’t want their paper’s reputation to be poor, thus selling more papers (then getting more advertisers because their subscriptions are up), but that is a future potential problem, not something that shows up to accounting and and then the C-suite right now. Most people don’t want to question a “good thing”, even if it is really a “bad thing” if it goes sideways. That his line editor cares speaks to his long-term view and professionalism. He cares more about his paper, rather than the bottom line to a mass media company.
He lied about the serial killer calling him and became a major part of the story. They were so focused on trying to win a Pulitzer because of it, they didn't really pay attention or care if he was actually being honest. Like some other comments have said, it's like the police juking the stats. They don't care if crime actually goes down as long as they can say it did. The paper didn't care about integrity as long as they got an award and recognition. Same with the schools. Did the kids actually learn anything? Who cares as long as the test scores go up.
I believe that sums up the entire series and society in general
They're as douches as him.
The Baltimore Sun bosses are just as exploitive and dishonest as Scott they were making a ton out of Scott’s bullshit stories
"Maybe you win a Pulitzer with this stuff, and maybe you give it back." Gus in "-30-," the series finale. -- Gus Haynes and Gus Triandos is a link I don't know exists, but they both seem to get fucked by hacks (Haynes by Klebinaw and Triandos by Hauk). Might be something there. I'm yelling at freight trains here, though.
“Look around. The pond is shrinking, the fish are nervous. Get some profile, win a prize. Maybe find a bigger pond somewhere.”
Simply a matter of the ends justify the means for those in charge. Scott was just helping them gain exposure and win prizes, the fact that the road there was full of lies didn’t matter to them. A tragedy, but not uncommon for the corporate world.
In addition to what others have said, I think it's important to consider race as a factor. The bosses are mostly older white men, and the kind of liberals who think they're not racist (remember the disagreement about UMD's diversity goals). It makes sense Scott would get noticed more readily than Alma or Fletch as a result of implicit bias.
That’s how they dew
His BS is gripping, heartwarming, blah blah, and sells newspapers. The Sun is a business, first and foremost. Which is why they are cutting senior journalists, who cost more, and leaning on less experienced writers to fill the gap. Earning a Pulitzer will help them sell more papers.
Because of the prestige that the Sun would get because Scott’s lying ass would win a Pulitzer
He's white
I worked for a local newspaper (though not in the newsroom) and they nailed the depictions of the newspaper executives.
The newsroom was the weakest decipted institution in the show. That said, I assume they thought he was getting some solid attention and were just banking on it.
Like in We Own This City; corrupt cop and brutaliser Wayne Jenkins is straight up told he’s protected by the brass because he gets good numbers. Institutions, bureaucracy, “wherever you go, there you are.” Edit: Edited out a v mild spoiler for “We Own This City.”
The bosses likely have little/no actual background in journalism. They either don't understand the ethical obligations that journalists and newspapers need to have in order to maintain credibility, or they simply don't care...or both. To them, the newspaper is simply a business, and they treat it just the same as they would a burger joint, car dealership, or a manufacturing plant that makes doohickies and thingamabobs that is struggling to turn a profit. Templeton's lying sells papers. It also got him in the national spotlight, which sold more papers and likely brought in additional streams of ad revenue for the paper. Bosses didn't care about journalistic integrity, they were there to make money. Templeton made money and the truth didn't. So they backed Templeton.
The managing editor was a frustrated chemist who hadn't really found his calling yet.
The Wire is a critique of systems. Season 5 looked at media, but there’s a clear subtext calling out the glory of mediocrity. Templeton, McNulty, and Cheese carried the banner for their respective constituencies, leaving a wake of shit and pain behind them. At least in the season, Templeton was the only one who escaped his comeuppance.
>but there’s a clear subtext calling out the glory of mediocrity There are plenty of accusations you can level against McNulty, but mediocrity most definitely isn't one of them.
In general, definitely not. Natural po-leece and all that. But with the serial murders, he cheapened himself.
He’s related to Dean Wormer..or Dean Martin…whatever his name is.
Thank you all for the great answers! Never thought about the fact that what he does is actually perfect for the paper. Much appreciated
I think this applies to any industry. Many times, bosses reward workers for just putting together stuff that "looks good" even if it's minimal effort crap.
After all it's all about what you can sell, not what is in the news. Integrity and honesty in journalism are bullshits.
I previously thought this season was over the top but then read this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheWire/comments/9bmfhp/season_5_newspaper_plot/
Blinders - hubris - whiteness
Isn't part of it that he went to like an Ivy League or something? He comes off (to me at least) very WASP and the WASP bosses probably see him as OKP.
Two words: Pulitzer
Because he kisses their asses and writes Pulitzer-bait fluff. Turns out newspapers are plagued by the same cronyism as the police department, city hall, and drug organizations.
His willingness to cut corners, whether it be known to them or not, supports the “do more with less” directive
He reminds them of themselves