Fans of the hit HBO series the wire got a real treat on September 24. David Simon, creator and producer of The Wire, presented his "Audacity of Despair" speech at Goucher College last night.
Simon, 48, expressed his belief that Americans are lowering their standards on a variety of issues and that these institutions are merely living up to those low standards.
He addressed issues such as the state and national government's reaction to Hurricane Katrina and the quality of journalism. The Baltimore native also mentioned state officials' and the police force's reaction to crime in Baltimore.
"If you care about where we're going," he said, "if you get a sense of how big the problems are and how little we can believe in the process of identifying the problems and speaking bluntly yo ourselves about the problems, how can you not be angry?"
Simon carried the themes of awareness and deception throughout his speech.
He discussed repercussions when a state lacks what he considers an aggressive and reliable news source.
Simon believes that the Baltimore Sun's quality is a product of what he perceives as journalism's downhill slant; the only papers he claims to reads are the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Simon said that the media, and information media rely on, are incredibly skewed. Exemplifying his point, he referred to the war in Iraq and standardized testing in Baltimore County schools. Scores rose in third and fifth grade, and in middle school.
"Those kids didn't sustain in the seventh and ninth grade because they didn't solve any problem -they just taught the test." Further emphasizing his point, Simon recalled how Governor O'Malley aimed to decrease crime.
"Well, how do you make crime go down? You redefine crime!" Simon said, as he punctuated his words with hand gestures that were equally as terse.
"So robberies became larcenies, aggravated assaults became common assaults and lo and behold, crime went down 40 percent!"
He returned to the issue of newspaper quality by faulting papers for not opposing or exposing the new crime vocabulary.
Simon shared his perception that the Internet is pushing people further from seeking and reporting objective, complete news.
For Simon, people can read a writer with whom they agree, and receive a very narrow perspective. Too much weight is put on blogs if nobody relies on objective news, Simon said.
He believes the purpose of a reporter is to gather the idea before it is analyzed and present it to the community as a collective, and then let readers express their opinion.
"The parasite is killing the host," said Simon.
Simon doesn't believe there are many sources that serve this initial reason for journalism.
Simon, the "angriest guy in television," believes unity and anger for others' problems could put an end to misinformation in journalism.
According to Simon, a more objective and informative newspaper would lead to more honest governmental and police institutions.
"I don't know that it's going to get better," said Simon.
"I don't see how it's going to get better because the first stage of it getting better, at least in my mind, is somebody calling attention to the problems."
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