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David Simon
OccupationAuthor, journalist, television writer, producer
NationalityAmerican
SubjectCrime fiction, True crime

David Simon (born 1960) is an American author, journalist, and a writer/producer of television series, best known as the creator of the HBO television series The Wire. He worked for the Baltimore Sun City Desk for twelve years. He wrote Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets and co-wrote The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood with Ed Burns. The former book was the basis for the NBC series Homicide: Life on the Street, on which Simon served as a writer and producer. Simon adapted the latter book into the HBO mini-series The Corner. He is the creator of the HBO television series The Wire, for which he served as executive producer, head writer, and show runner for all five seasons. He adapted the non-fiction book Generation Kill into an HBO mini-series and served as the show runner for the project. He was selected as one of the 2010 MacArthur Fellows.[1]

Biography

Simon "Little D" was born to a Jewish[2] family in Washington, D.C. He attended Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Bethesda, Maryland and wrote for the school newspaper, The Tattler. He has commonly beeen classified one step above midget. He graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park. While at college he wrote for The Diamondback and became friends with contemporary David Mills.[3]

Journalism

Upon leaving college he worked as a police reporter at The Baltimore Sun from 1982 to 1995.[4] He spent most of his career covering the crime beat.[4][5] A colleague has said that Simon loved journalism and felt it was "God's work".[5] Simon says that he was initially altruistic and was inspired to enter journalism by the Washington Post's coverage of Watergate but became increasingly pragmatic as he gained experience.[5] Later in his career he aimed to tell the best possible story without "cheating it".[5]

Simon was a union captain when the writing staff went on strike in 1987 over benefit cuts.[6] He remained angry after the strike ended and began to feel uncomfortable in the writing room.[6] He searched for a reason to justify a leave of absence and settled on the idea of writing a novel.[6] "I got out of journalism because some sons of bitches bought my newspaper and it stopped being fun," says Simon.[7]

In an interview in Reason in 2004, Simon said that since leaving the newspaper business he has become more cynical about the power of journalism.[8] "One of the sad things about contemporary journalism is that it actually matters very little. The world now is almost inured to the power of journalism. The best journalism would manage to outrage people. And people are less and less inclined to outrage," said Simon.[8] "I've become increasingly cynical about the ability of daily journalism to affect any kind of meaningful change. I was pretty dubious about it when I was a journalist, but now I think it's remarkably ineffectual."[8]

Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets

Simon's leave of absence from The Sun resulted in his first book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets (1991). The book was based on his experiences shadowing the Baltimore Police Department homicide unit during 1988.[4] The idea came from a conversation on Christmas Eve 1985 in the unit office, where Det. Brian Lansey told him "If someone just wrote down what happens in this place for one year, they'd have a goddamn book."[6] Simon approached the police department and the editors of the paper to receive approval. The detectives were initially slow to accept him, but he persevered in an attempt to "seem … like part of the furniture". However, he soon ingratiated himself with the detectives, saying in the closing notes of the book "I shared with the detectives a year's worth of fast-food runs, bar arguments and station house humor: Even for a trained observer, it was hard to remain aloof."[5] During one instance, Simon even assisted with an arrest. Two detectives Simon was riding with pulled their car to a curb to apprehend two suspects, but Detective Terry McLarney got his trenchcoat caught in a seat belt when he tried to exit the car. McLarney asked Simon for help, and Simon helped apprehend and search one of the suspects.[9]

The book won the 1992 Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime book.[10] The Associated Press called it "a true-crime classic".[9] The Library Journal also highly recommended it, and Newsday described it as "one of the most engrossing police procedural mystery books ever written".[9] Simon credits his time researching the book as altering his writing style and informing later work. He learned to be more patient in research and writing, and said a key lesson was not promoting himself but concentrating on his subjects.[5] Simon told Baltimore's City Paper in 2003 that Homicide was not traditional journalism. "I felt Homicide the book and The Corner were not traditional journalism in the sense of coming from some artificially omniscient, objective point of view," said Simon. "They're immersed in the respective cultures that they cover in a way that traditional journalism often isn't."[7]

Homicide: Life on the Street

The publishers of Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets were eager for a screen adaptation and submitted it to numerous directors but there was little interest.[6] Simon suggested that they send the book to Baltimore native and film director Barry Levinson. Levinson's assistant Gail Mutrux enjoyed the book and both she and Levinson became attached as producers.[6] The project became the award-winning TV series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999), on which Simon worked as a writer and producer.[4]

Simon was asked by Mutrux to write the show's pilot episode but declined, feeling he did not have the necessary expertise.[11] He collaborated with his old college friend David Mills to write the season two premiere "Bop Gun".[5][12] The episode was based on a story by executive producer Tom Fontana and featured Robin Williams in a guest starring role that garnered the actor an Emmy nomination. Simon and Mills won the WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for the episode.[5]

Simon left his job with the Baltimore Sun in 1995 to work full time on Homicide: Life on the Street during the production of the show's fourth season. Simon wrote the teleplay for the season four episodes "Justice: Part 2"[13] and "Scene of the Crime" (with Anya Epstein).[14] For season five he was the show's story editor and continued to contribute teleplays writing the episodes "Bad Medicine"[15] and "Wu's on First?" (again with Epstein).[16] He was credited as a producer on the show's sixth and seventh seasons. He wrote the teleplays for parts two and three of the sixth season premiere "Blood Ties"[17][18] (the latter marking his third collaboration with Epstein) and provided the story for the later sixth season episodes "Full Court Press"[19] and "Finnegan's Wake" (with James Yoshimura).[20] He provided the story for the seventh season episodes "Shades of Gray" (with Julie Martin),[21] "The Same Coin" (again with Yoshimura)[22] and "Self Defense" (with Eric Overmyer).[23] Simon wrote the story and teleplay for the seventh season episodes "The Twenty Percent Solution"[24] and "Sideshow: Part 2".[25] Simon, Martin and teleplay writer T. J. English won the Humanitas Prize in the 60 minutes category for the episode "Shades of Gray".[26] Simon was nominated for a second WGA Award for Best Writing in a Drama for his work on "Finnegan's Wake" with Yoshimura and Mills (who wrote the teleplay).[27]

Simon has said that he thought the show was a "remarkable drama" but that it did not reflect the book.[6] He has also said that when writing for the show he had to put his experiences of the real detectives aside as the characters became quite different, particularly in their more philosophical approach to the job.[11] Simon said that TV must find shorthand ways of referencing anything real.[5]

The Corner

In 1997 he co-authored, with Ed Burns, The Corner: A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market.[8][28] Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner.[4] He took a second leave of absence from the Baltimore Sun in 1993 to research the project.[5][29] Simon became close to one of his subjects, drug addict Gary McCullough, and was devastated by his death while he was writing the project.[5] Simon says that he approached the research with the abstract idea that his subjects may die because of their addictions but it was not possible to fully prepare for the reality.[5] He remains grateful to his subjects saying "This involved people's whole lives, there's no privacy in it. That was an enormous gift which many, many people gave us. Even the most functional were at war with themselves. But they were not foolish people. And they made that choice."[5]

The Corner was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times.[30] Simon again returned to his journalism career after finishing the book but felt further changed by his experiences. He said he "was less enamored of the braggadocio, all that big, we're-really-having-an-impact talk" and no longer believed that they were making a difference; he left his job at The Sun within a year for work on NBC's Homicide.[5]

Soon after Homicide concluded Simon co-wrote (with David Mills) and produced The Corner as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO.[6] The show received three Emmy Awards, including Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries or a Movie, for Simon and Mills.[6]

The Wire

Simon was the creator, show runner, executive producer and head writer of the HBO drama series The Wire.[29] Many of The Wire's characters and incidents also came from Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets.[31] After a critically acclaimed fourth season, Simon signed on to produce the fifth and final season of The Wire, which focused on the role of mass media in society.[32]

He again worked with Ed Burns on creating the show. They originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on the experiences of Burns when working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. During this time Burns had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for The Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."[33]

They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot[33][34] after ordering a further two scripts to see how the series would progress.[35] Carolyn Strauss president of HBO entertainment has said that Simon's argument that the most subversive thing HBO could do was invade the networks' "backyard" of police procedurals helped to persuade them.[4]

The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working-class America through examination of the city ports.[36] The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." [36] For the fourth season Simon again turned to Burns' experience, this time his second career as a Baltimore public school teacher in examining the theme of education.[4][37] The fifth season looked at the media, as well as continuing themes such as politics from earlier seasons.

Simon was reunited with his The Corner producers Robert F. Colesberry and Nina K. Noble on The Wire.[32] Simon credits Colesberry for achieving the show's realistic visual feel because of his experience as a director.[38] They recruited Homicide star and director Clark Johnson to helm the pilot episode.[38] The completed pilot was given to HBO in November 2001.[35] Johnson returned to direct the second episode when the show was picked up,[38] and would direct the series finale as well, in addition to starring in the fifth season.

Simon approached acclaimed crime fiction authors to write for The Wire. He was recommended the work of George Pelecanos by a colleague while working at the Baltimore Sun because of similarities between their writing. The two writers have much in common including a childhood in Silver Spring, attendance at the University of Maryland and their interest in the "fate of the American city and the black urban poor."[35] Simon did not read Pelecanos initially because of territorial prejudice; Pelecanos is from Washington.[6] Once Simon received further recommendations including one from his wife Laura Lippman he tried Pelecanos' novel The Sweet Forever and changed his mind.[35] He sought out Pelecanos when recruiting writers for The Wire. The two met at the funeral of a mutual friend shortly after Simon delivered the pilot episode.[35] Simon pitched Pelecanos the idea of The Wire as a novel for television about the American city as Pelecanos drove him home.[35] Pelecanos became a regular writer[39] and later a producer for the show's second[40] and third seasons.[41] Simon and Pelcanos collaborated to write the episode "Middle Ground"[42][43] which received the show's first Emmy nomination, in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.[44]

Pelecanos left the production staff following the third season to focus on his next novel; Simon has commented that he missed having him working on the show full-time but was pleased that he continued to write for them and was a fan of the resultant book The Night Gardener.[45] Similar to Simon's own experience in researching Homicide Pelecanos spent time embedded with the Washington DC homicide unit to research the book.

Crime novelist Dennis Lehane has also written for the series starting with third season.[41][46] Lehane has commented that he was impressed by Simon and Burns' ear for authentic street slang.[35]

Eric Overmyer was brought in to fill the role of Pelecanos as a full-time writer producer.[45][47] He had previously worked with Simon on Homicide where the two became friends.[45] Simon has said that he was impressed with Overmyer's writing particularly in synthesizing the story for "Margin of Error" as the episode is the height of the show's political storyline but must also progress other plot threads.[45]

Simon and his writing staff were nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for their work on the fifth season.[48] Simon and Burns collaborated to write the series finale "-30-" which received the show's second Emmy nomination, again in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.[49]

Simon has stated that he finds working with HBO more comfortable than his experiences with NBC on Homicide and that HBO are able to allow greater creative control because they are dependent on subscribers rather than on viewing figures.[8] He has said that he feels unable to return to network television because he felt pressure to compromise storytelling for audience satisfaction.[6]

Generation Kill

Simon produced and wrote Generation Kill for HBO with Ed Burns. They again worked with Nina Noble as a producer. The miniseries is an adaption of the non-fiction book of the same name. It relates the first 40 days of the 2003 invasion of Iraq as experienced by 1st Reconnaissance Battalion and their embedded reporter, Evan Wright. Simon and Burns worked with Wright in adapting his book into the series.[50]

Treme

Simon collaborated with Eric Overmyer again on Treme,[51] a project about musicians in post-Katrina New Orleans.[35] Overmyer lives part-time in New Orleans, and Simon believed his experience would be valuable in navigating the "ornate oral tradition" of the city's stories.[35] Simon also consulted with New Orleans natives Donald Harrison Jr., Kermit Ruffins, and Davis Rogan while developing the series.[52] The show focuses on a working-class neighborhood, and is smaller in scope than The Wire. The series premiered on April 11, 2010 on HBO.

Treme is named after the Faubourg Treme neighborhood in New Orleans that is home to many of the city's musicians.[51] Simon has stated that the series will explore beyond the music scene to encompass political corruption, the public housing controversy, the criminal-justice system, clashes between police and Mardi Gras Indians, and the struggle to regain the tourism industry after the storm.[53] One of the principal characters in the pilot script runs a restaurant.[52] The series was filmed on location and was expected to provide a boost to the New Orleans economy.[53] Simon's casting of the show mirrored that of The Wire in using local actors wherever possible.[52] Wendell Pierce, who had previously played Bunk Moreland on The Wire, stars in the series.[54]

Future projects

A new project of Simon's is a film called Bmore Careful. Simon is directing and producing the film, which is based on a novel of the same name, and has a plot focusing on the city of Baltimore. Simon is also collaborating with Tom Fontana (Oz) on a new HBO mini-series called Manhunt that will focus on the 12 days after the Lincoln Assassination while John Wilkes Booth was on the run.[55] Simon has written a teleplay about bluesman Muddy Waters that has not been produced.[5] He has mentioned plans to write another book; potentially about the rise of drug use in the 1950s and 1970s.[6] Simon told Baltimore's City Paper in 2003 that someday he plans to write another book.[7] "At some point I'm going to put down this crack pipe of television and go back and do another book or something," says Simon.[7] Simon continues to work as a freelance journalist and author, writing for The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Details magazine.[29]

Personal life

David Simon is married to Baltimore novelist and former Sun reporter Laura Lippman. They have a daughter, and he has a son, Ethan from a previous marriage. Simon is also the uncle of Jason Simon, guitarist/vocalist for the psychedelic rock band Dead Meadow.[56]

Writing process, characteristics, and motivation

Simon is known for his realistic dialogue and journalistic approach to writing.[35] He says that authenticity is paramount and that he writes not with a general audience in mind but with the opinions of his subjects as his priority.[35] He has described his extensive use of real anecdotes and characters in his writing as "stealing life".[57]

In a talk that Simon gave to a live audience in April, 2007 at the Creative Alliance's storytelling series, Simon disclosed that he had started writing for revenge against John Carroll and Bill Marimow, the two most senior editors at The Baltimore Sun when Simon was a reporter at the paper.[58] Simon said he had watched Carroll and Marimow "single-handedly destroy" the newspaper and that he spent over ten years trying to get back at them.[58]

Anything I've ever accomplished as a writer, as somebody doing TV, anything I've ever done in life, down to, like, cleaning up my room, has been accomplished because I was going to show people that they were fucked up, wrong, and that I was the fucking center of the universe and the sooner they got hip to that, the happier they would all be.[58]

One of the actions Simon took was to name a character in The Wire after Marimow and make the character "a repellent police-department toady," although Marimow is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist known for tough, well-documented investigations of the Philadelphia police.[59] Carroll left the Baltimore Sun to become editor at the Los Angeles Times and resigned in 2005 after budget cuts were announced.[58] "He stands up like a [bleeping] hero, takes a bullet," said Simon.[58] In 2006 Marimow was diagnosed with prostate cancer, something that Simon said "took the edge off" his grudge.[58] Carroll and Marimow "were fuel for 10 years of my life. ... And now, I got nothing," Simon said.[58]

When asked about these comments, Simon responded:

"I spoke with some hyperbole and, I hope, comic effect," Simon said via e-mail. He said his point was "that simple revenge is both empty and beside the point and that a good story carefully told has to speak to larger themes. You do not tell an ornate, careful story over ten hours of HBO airtime merely to bust on any given soul."

[58]

Works

Commentary

  • David Simon (2009-07-16). "Build the Wall". Columbia Journalism Review. Retrieved 2009-07-29.
  • David Simon (2009-03-01). "In Baltimore, No One Left to Press the Police". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2009-03-01.
  • David Simon (2008-01-20). "Does the News Matter To Anyone Anymore?". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-01-21.

Non-fiction books

Filmography

Producer

Year Show Role Notes
2010 Treme Executive producer Season 1
2008 Generation Kill Executive producer
The Wire Executive producer Season 5
2006 Season 4
2004 Season 3
2003 Season 2
2002 Season 1
2000 The Corner Executive producer
1999 Homicide: Life on the Street Producer Season 7
1998
Season 6
1997
Story editor Season 5
1996

Writer

Year Show Season Episode title Episode Notes
2008 Generation Kill 1 "Bombs in the Garden" 7 Story and teleplay
"Stay Frosty" 6 Story
"A Burning Dog" 5 Story
"Combat Jack" 4 Story and teleplay
"Screwby" 3 Story
"The Cradle of Civilization" 2 Story
"Get Some" 1 Writer
The Wire 5 "–30–" 10 Story and teleplay
"Late Editions" 9 Story
"Clarifications" 8 Story
"Took" 7 Story
"The Dickensian Aspect" 6 Story
"React Quotes" 5 Story
"Transitions" 4 Story
"Not For Attribution" 3 Story
"Unconfirmed Reports" 2 Story
"More with Less" 1 Story and teleplay
2006 4 "Final Grades" 13 Story and teleplay
"A New Day" 11 Story
"Alliances" 5 Story
"Boys of Summer" 1 Story and teleplay
2004 3 "Mission Accomplished" 12 Story and teleplay
"Middle Ground" 11 Story
"Reformation" 10 Story
"Slapstick" 9 Story and teleplay
"Moral Midgetry" 8 Story
"Back Burners" 7 Story
"Homecoming" 6 Story
"Straight and True" 5 Story
"Hamsterdam" 4 Story
"Dead Soldiers" 3 Story
"All Due Respect" 2 Story
"Time After Time" 1 Story and teleplay
2003 2 "Port in a Storm" 12 Story and teleplay
"Bad Dreams" 11 Story
"Storm Warnings" 10 Story
"Stray Rounds" 9 Story and teleplay
"Duck and Cover" 8 Story
"Backwash" 7 Story
"All Prologue" 6 Story and teleplay
"Undertow" 5 Story
"Hard Cases" 4 Story
"Hot Shots" 3 Story and teleplay
"Collateral Damage" 2 Story and teleplay
"Ebb Tide" 1 Story and teleplay
2002 1 "Sentencing" 13 Writer
"Cleaning Up" 12 Story
"The Hunt" 11 Story
"The Cost" 10 Story and teleplay
"Game Day" 9 Story
"Lessons" 8 Story and teleplay
"One Arrest" 7 Story
"The Wire" 6 Story and teleplay
"The Pager" 5 Story
"Old Cases" 4 Story and teleplay
"The Buys" 3 Story and teleplay
"The Detail" 2 Story and teleplay
"The Target" 1 Story and teleplay
2000 The Corner 1 "Everyman's Blues" 6
"Corner Boy's Blues" 5
"Dope Fiend Blues" 4
"DeAndre's Blues" 2
"Gary's Blues" 1
1999 Homicide: Life on the Street 7 "Self Defense" 18 Story
"Sideshow: Part 2" 15 Writer
"The Same Coin" 12 Teleplay by Sharon Guskin from a story by Simon and James Yoshimura
"Shades of Gray" 10 Teleplay by T. J. English from a story by Simon and Julie Martin
1998 6 "Finnegan's Wake" 21 Teleplay by David Mills from a story by Simon and James Yoshimura
"Full Court Press" 18 Teleplay by Phillip B. Epstein from a story by Simon
1997 "Blood Ties: Part 3" 3 Teleplay by Simon and Anya Epstein from a story by Tom Fontana, Julie Martin and James Yoshimura
"Blood Ties: Part 2" 2 Teleplay by Simon from a story by Tom Fontana and James Yoshimura
5 "Wu's on First?" 15 Teleplay by Simon and Anya Epstein from a story by Julie Martin and James Yoshimura
1996 "Bad Medicine" 4 Teleplay by Simon from a story by Tom Fontana and Julie Martin
4 "Scene of the Crime" 18 Teleplay by Simon and Anya Epstein from a story by Tom Fontana, Henry Bromell and Barry Levinson
"Justice: Part 2" 14 Teleplay by Simon from a story by Tom Fontana and Henry Bromell
NYPD Blue 3 "Hollie and the Blowfish" 17 Teleplay by Simon, story by Simon and Bill Clark
1994 Homicide: Life on the Street 2 "Bop Gun" 1 Teleplay by Simon and David Mills from a story by Tom Fontana

References

  1. ^ "David Simon: 2010 MacArthur Fellow". MacArthur Foundation. Retrieved 28 September 2010.
  2. ^ David Plotz. "The Wire Final Season". Slate.com. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
  3. ^ Hal Hinson (2002-06-02). "TELEVISION/RADIO; Revisiting Baltimore's Embattled Streets". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-10-11.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Neil Drumming. "High Wire Act". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2006-09-27.
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Cynthia Rose. "The originator of TV's 'Homicide' remains close to his police-reporter roots". Seattle Times. Archived from the original on 1999-04-28. Retrieved 2006-09-28.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Mary Alice Blackwell. "Fun comes down to 'The Wire'". Daily Progress. Retrieved 2006-09-27. [dead link]
  7. ^ a b c d "Under The Wire". Citypaper.com. May 28, 2003. Retrieved 2010-09-14. {{cite web}}: |first= missing |last= (help); Missing pipe in: |first= (help)
  8. ^ a b c d e Jesse Walker (2004-10). "David Simon Says". Reason Magazine. Retrieved 2006-09-27. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ a b c Kalat, David P. (1998). Homicide: Life on the Street: The Unofficial Companion. Los Angeles, California: Renaissance Books. p. 101. ISBN 1580630219.
  10. ^ "Edgar Award Archives". Mystery Writers of America. Archived from the original on September 15, 2006. Retrieved 2006-09-29.
  11. ^ a b David Simon (1998). Homicide: Life on the Street season 4 interviews (DVD). NBC.
  12. ^ Stephen Gyllenhaal (1994-01-06). "Bop Gun". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 2. Episode 01. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  13. ^ Peter Medak (1996-02-23). "Justice: Part 2". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 4. Episode 14. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  14. ^ Kathy Bates (1996-04-12). "Scene of the Crime". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 4. Episode 18. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  15. ^ Kenneth Fink (1996-10-25). "Bad Medicine". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 5. Episode 4. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  16. ^ Tim McCann (1997-02-07). "Wu's on First?". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 5. Episode 15. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  17. ^ Nick Gomez (1997-10-24). "Blood Ties: Part 2". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 6. Episode 2. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  18. ^ Mark Pellington (1997-10-31). "Blood Ties: Part 3". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 6. Episode 3. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  19. ^ Clark Johnson (1998-04-03). "Full Court Press". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 6. Episode 18. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  20. ^ Steve Buscemi (1998-04-24). "Finnegan's Wake". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 6. Episode 21. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  21. ^ Adam Bernstein (1999-01-08). "Shades of Gray". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 7. Episode 10. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  22. ^ Lisa Cholodenko (1999-01-29). "The Same Coin". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 7. Episode 12. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  23. ^ Barbara Kopple (1999-04-09). "Self Defense". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 7. Episode 18. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  24. ^ Clark Johnson (1998-10-30). "The Twenty Percent Solution". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 7. Episode 04. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  25. ^ Edwin Sherin (1999-02-19). "Sideshow: Part 2". Homicide: Life on the Street. Season 7. Episode 15. NBC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |writers= ignored (help)
  26. ^ "60 Minute Category". Humanitas Prize. Archived from the original on 2007-03-15. Retrieved 2006-09-28.
  27. ^ Nick Madigan (1999-01-14). "Cable pix please WGA". Variety. Retrieved 2006-09-28.
  28. ^ "The Corner: About the Book". Random House. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
  29. ^ a b c "David Simon Biography". HBO. Retrieved 2007-10-03.
  30. ^ "Notable Books of the Year 1997 - Non-Fiction". New York Times. Retrieved 2006-09-29.
  31. ^ David Simon (2005). The Wire "The Target" commentary track (DVD). HBO.
  32. ^ a b Wiltz, Teresa (2007-09-03). "Down to "The Wire": It's a Wrap for Gritty TV Series". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-09-03. Cite error: The named reference "Wire wrap article" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  33. ^ a b Ian Rothkirch (2002). "What drugs have not destroyed, the war on them has". Salon.com.
  34. ^ Alvarez, Rafael (2004). The Wire: Truth Be Told. New York: Pocket Books. pp. 18–19, 35–39.
  35. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Margaret Talbot (2007). "Stealing Life". The New Yorker. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  36. ^ a b Richard Vine (2005). "Totally Wired". The Guardian Unlimited. London. Retrieved 2010-05-01.
  37. ^ "A Teacher in Baltimore". HBO. Retrieved 2006-10-03.
  38. ^ a b c David Simon (2005). "The Target" commentary track (DVD). HBO.
  39. ^ "Season 1 crew". HBO. 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  40. ^ "Season 2 crew". HBO. 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  41. ^ a b "Season 3 crew". HBO. 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
  42. ^ "Episode guide - episode 36 middle ground". HBO. 2004. Retrieved 2006-08-09.
  43. ^ David Simon, George P. Pelecanos (2004-12-12). "Middle Ground". The Wire. Season 3. Episode 11. HBO. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |episodelink= ignored (|episode-link= suggested) (help); Unknown parameter |serieslink= ignored (|series-link= suggested) (help)
  44. ^ "Emmy award archives". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-16.
  45. ^ a b c d "Exclusive David Simon Q&A". AOL. 2007. Retrieved 2007-10-14.
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