The Wire, Pt. 5

The final season of "The Wire" was one of the most interesting. It starts out with a great quote from one of my favorite characters, Det. Bunk Moreland (Wendell Pierce), who says, "The bigger the lie, the more they believe." After an exploration of a number of different facets of society, David Simon turned the mirror on the media in season five.

A lot of the major story lines wrapped up, but it was the exploration of the newsroom — in this case Simon's old haunt, The Baltimore Sun — that made a big impact. This hit the closest to home for me, too, because I spent the first six and a half years of my work life as a professional journalist. And watching "The Wire" unfold reminded me of all the things that made me want to be a journalist, and all the things that made me want to find a new path.

Newspapers are dying. It's a slow death, and it's probably a death that's been coming a while, but we're having trouble coming to grips with it. You could pin it to a number of factors. The Internet and the capability of receiving information instantly is changing culture, the over-inflated salary structures at major newspapers and declining ad revenue haven't helped; and then there's the fact that, sad as it may be to admit, people don't read as much anymore. In the past, it was uncommon for people to be without a newspaper subscription, now it's uncommon for them to maintain a subscription. Our society is changing and newspaper's just might end up being the tape deck of society.

But more troubling is the fact that our culture's perception of "news" has changed. In the last Presidential election, a lot was made of the fact that many young adults get their current events "news" from places like "The Daily Show." There is nothing wrong with "The Daily Show," it's got great entertainment value and it certainly offers an informed opinion, but it doesn't seek to be news in the traditional sense. That is lost on our culture today.

I was horrified last week to learn that The National Inquirer was among the frontrunners to win this year's Pulitzer Prize for investigative journalism. I think that speaks volumes about our society today. Sources like MTV News, TMZ, tabloids and even gossip sites are becoming increasingly valid sources of news and facts among consumers, and the definition of news, entertainment, and gossip has become totally blurred.

Major newspapers are now struggling to keep up. In the show, one of the editors quips "If it bleeds, it leads." He meant it as a sad but true indictment of modern journalistic values, and it isn't the first time I've heard it.

I've always felt that newspapers served a variety of purposes. One was to provide entertainment. One is to shed light on stories in the community, to highlight the great people, programs, and events that make a community vibrant, and finally to inform. There are stories that people need to read, and issues people need to know, whether they are excited about them or not.

But we live in an era where the bottom line and making a splash with the public are taking precedence. When looking at the school system, I noted that the focus on test scores was making other pursuits irrelevant. The same is true for journalism today.

Though The Paso Robles Press has a different focus, different set of challenges, and a different set of priorities, I sometimes felt the tension between sensational press that sold newspapers and the kind of quality story-telling that is what journalism should be about. There is a joy in telling stories and capturing the drama that makes society real; but increasingly that is becoming irrelevant.

The other day I watched "The Paper." It's one of my favorite movies. Watching that film in high school, it captured all the reasons why I wanted to pursue journalism. The camaraderie in the news room, the thrill of the hunt, and the dedication to getting the story right. Now I look at that film as a sort of love story to an industry that doesn't exist.

"The Wire" perfectly captures the tension of the modern news room; no surprise given Simon's history in the industry. The constant downsizing, the shrinking news hole, shifting priorities, and a focus on sensationalism over depth and relevance are all part of the death knell of modern journalism.

As a society, we get the news, entertainment, government, and school systems we ask for. Now I know what you're saying, we didn't ask for these problems, necessarily. But the problem is, we're not fighting for what we do want either. We have to demand changes. We have to vote with our pocket books, with our voices, and at the ballot box.

The overall message of "The Wire" is that the problems of Baltimore, and by inference all great cities, are systemic. Throwing money or a quick fix at one aspect of it, we get nowhere. What happened to our society didn't happen overnight, and it doesn't stop at the street. If we want to affect real change, we have to tackle the whole thing.

Sometimes when we see a problem that big, we are so confounded by its depth we don't know where to begin, so feel like we can't do anything. I think this attitude is reflected in "Watchmen," which takes about as nihilistic a view of society's problems as possible. In the film, two of the "heroes" are arguing about how to make the world a better place.

Adrian Veidt: It doesn't take a genius to see that the world has problems.

Edward Blake: No, but it takes a room full of morons to think they're small enough for you to handle.

But Veidt doesn't except this assessment, and neither should we. He says, with the right leadership we can save this world. I would not advocate his particular brand of solution, but ignoring our problems won't make them go away, and our problems are too big for anyone to handle on their own.

So I go back to "The Blind Side." What I find moving about that story is that one family did what they could to help one person with few options realize his potential. They didn't save the world, but they saved Michael Oher. If everyone did the same, imagine what could be accomplished.

As Christians, we should be leading the way. I don't know what this looks like, but having watched the show and having wrestled with these ideas, I'm committed to finding a way to do my part. In "The Blind Side," on the pillar of the school is inscribe these words, "With men, this is possible, but with God, all things are possible." I believe that, and I hope you do too.

What is God calling you to do to make this world a better place?