Life Meets Art

Radley Balko | March 3, 2008

For you fans of The Wire:

The Philadelphia Inquirer is running a multipart series about Philadelphia's homeless, inspired by the gruesome death of a homeless man. This is delicious because the Inquirer's editor is none other than Bill Marimow, former Sun managing editor, nemesis of David Simon, and Simon's supposed model for managing editor Thomas Klebanow on The Wire. Klebanow, of course, is supervising the Sun's special homeless investigation, inspired by the gruesome deaths of homeless men.

The joke on the show, of course, is that the homeless series is nothing more than cheap Pulitzer bait, one habit of contemporary journalism that caused Simon to leave the field.