{"id":18367,"date":"2019-04-16T12:39:23","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T20:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?post_type=blog&#038;p=18367"},"modified":"2023-08-28T17:05:40","modified_gmt":"2023-08-29T00:05:40","slug":"what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest","status":"publish","type":"blog","link":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/","title":{"rendered":"What &#8220;The Wire&#8221; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore (and How &#8220;Charm City&#8221; Fills in the Rest)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Lee Gardner<\/strong><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>Baltimoreans who venture beyond the I-695 beltway always know it\u2019s coming. We meet someone from another city, or another country. They find out we\u2019re from Baltimore, and after a suitably polite length of get-to-know-you chat, they bring up the award-winning HBO series\u00a0<em><strong>The Wire<\/strong><\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>And really, it\u2019s okay. There are worse things than being linked with one of the best television series ever made. But <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">is<\/span> Baltimore really like <em>The Wire<\/em>? It&#8217;s a complicated question to answer.<\/p>\n<p>It would be handy if we could all pull out our cell phones or laptops and host an impromptu screening of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/documentaries\/charm-city\/\"><em><strong>Charm City<\/strong><\/em><\/a>, Marilyn Ness\u2019s <em>Independent Lens<\/em> documentary, to provide a somewhat fuller picture of some of our hometown challenges.<\/p>\n<p>But despite grousing from local politicians during the series\u2019 run, <em>The Wire<\/em> got it right\u2014mostly.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Take the very first minutes of the opening episode, wherein an African American man talks at length to a Baltimore Police detective about the murder of a man named nicknamed Snot Boogie. They\u2019re sitting on the white marble steps of a rowhouse\u2014accurate. The police lights and yellow police tape\u2014accurate. British actor Dominic West\u2019s Bawlmer accent\u2014no so much, but not everyone in Baltimore has one. Co-creators David Simon and Ed Burns spent time as a <em>Baltimore Sun<\/em> crime reporter and a Baltimore Police detective, respectively, so they know both the city\u2019s cops and streets far better than most. Snot Boogie is based on an actual person and his fate.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Wire - Season One Opening Scene\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LYgKmOJT_gM?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>But in Baltimore, where \u201cStop Snitchin\u2019\u201d is as familiar a phrase as \u201cGo, O\u2019s,\u201d it still seems a little off to watch a black man talking to a white cop about a murder out in the open. It\u2019s tough to imagine the real-life East Baltimoreans of <em>Charm City<\/em> doing the same\u2014even though Clayton Guyton, &#8220;Mr. C,&#8221; the grizzled community activist at the heart of the film, rails against the fear of being branded a snitch. [As seen in clip below:]<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.pbs.org\/viralplayer\/3027603406\/\" width=\"512\" height=\"376\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" seamless=\"\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe>\n<p>With that in mind, let\u2019s take a look at the series\u2019 view of Baltimore, season by season.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Season 1: &#8220;all in the game&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>West Baltimore, as seen in <em>The Wire<\/em>, generally rings true. It is predominantly African American, predominantly lower-income, and largely bereft of opportunity for young black men, for whom the most obvious future lies in the booming street trade in heroin and cocaine. The pagers everyone carries marked the series as a period piece, even during its first run, but Baltimoreans of a certain vintage can also date it by the high-rise housing projects CGI-ed into some scenes\u2014most were torn down more than 20 years ago, before the series filmed.<\/p>\n<p>Charismatic drug moguls such as Avon Barksdale and Stringer Bell were based in part on real people, including <strong>\u201cLittle Melvin\u201d Williams<\/strong> (more on him later). <strong>Omar Little<\/strong>, the charismatic stickup man\/anti-hero supreme, likewise drew from several actual Baltimoreans. The dysfunctional police department and its hapless response to the drug game is fairly accurate, sadly. The tough, scuffling lives of young dealers on the corners are, too\u2014getting in the game isn\u2019t a path to immediate riches any more than making a latte makes you the president of Starbucks.<\/p>\n<p><em>Charm City<\/em> was filmed largely around Rose Street in East Baltimore, but it captures a world similar to that of <em>The Wire<\/em> in many ways. Generational poverty and lack of opportunity have taken their toll on the communities and their residents, and gun violence is commonplace. The city has maintained one of the highest per-capita murder rates in the country for decades, and most of the victims are African American men. As burly anti-violence mediator Alex Long marvels in<em> Charm City<\/em>, if that many white people were killed, the city would declare a state of emergency. (Ness also spends time with several members of Baltimore City Police, especially young African American patrolman Eric Winston, who help humanize a force typically seen as oppressive outsiders.)<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, on more trivial details, like what Baltimoreans eat, <em>The Wire<\/em> is always dead on. When West\u2019s Jimmy McNulty needs to convince a couple of uniformed officers to do him a favor, he brings them beer and crab cakes. But not just any crab cakes\u2014Faidley\u2019s crab cakes, because that\u2019s how you bribe someone. And when drug enforcer Wee-Bay says he\u2019ll confess to a few more murders if someone will bring him another pit beef (the city\u2019s indigenous barbecue variant) with extra horseradish, it might be the most Baltimore thing ever.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Season 2: Labor Unions and Human Trafficking<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Baltimore does indeed boast a long history as a busy port, and the docks have suffered a long decline as cargo traffic slowed to a low ebb in recent decades. At this point in the series, Simon and Burns are preaching, calling out the shame, tragedy, and punishing effects of the city\u2019s industrial decline on its ordinary stiffs, black and white.<\/p>\n<p>That said, no shipping container full of dead Eastern European girls has ever showed up on the docks. On sinister Greeks\u2014this writer can\u2019t speak to it. The show is after all a cop drama, at some level. But the fact that the investigation that gives the season its narrative motor starts off with a petty feud involving a parochial police commander and a stained-glass window in a church seems utterly plausible.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Season 3: Local Politics<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is where it gets really fun for locals, because politics. Despite disavowals from the show\u2019s creators, young white ambitious City Councilmember <strong>Thomas Carcetti<\/strong> is clearly a fictional simulacrum for young white ambitious former City Councilmember <strong>Martin O&#8217;Malley<\/strong>. Carcetti wins the mayor\u2019s race in a predominantly black city thanks to a black vote split in part by his close colleague, an African American councilmember, which is precisely what happened when O\u2019Malley won the Democratic primary for mayor in 1999. O\u2019Malley went on to serve two terms as governor and make a brief run for president in 2016. The uncanny parallels certainly make Carcetti\u2019s kvetching and sleeping around more fun to watch. (Irish actor Aidan \u201cLittlefinger\u201d Gillen, who plays Carcetti, makes Dominic West\u2019s accent sound pretty good.)<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Wire - Carcetti&#039;s Typical Politician (Tough on Crime) Speech\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1vmWkJ8hLoE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>Baltimoreans also note fictional ambitious black City Council President <strong>Nerese Campbell<\/strong> bearing a strong resemblance to ambitious former City Council President <strong>Sheila Dixon<\/strong>. In the show, Campbell is a tough political infighter resentful of Carcetti barging ahead of \u201chis turn\u201d at leadership. Dixon succeeded O\u2019Malley as mayor before being forced to resign in 2010 after being convicted of theft and embezzlement.<\/p>\n<p>Glad-handing state <strong>Rep. Clay Davis<\/strong> may not be so obviously based on a particular Baltimore politician, but recent events have validated his casual corruption and matter-of-course shakedowns.<strong> State Sen. Nathaniel Oaks<\/strong> resigned in 2018 after being convicted of fraud and bribery. And <strong>Catherine Pugh<\/strong>, the current mayor, is under fire for allegedly dunning local companies and organizations with business before state and city government into spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy thousands of copies of her <em>Healthy Holly<\/em> children\u2019s book series. It\u2019s a story that even Simon and Burns couldn\u2019t, or wouldn\u2019t, make up.<\/p>\n<p>One of the areas where <em>Charm City<\/em> and<em> The Wire<\/em> coincide most closely concerns their depictions of city government effectively ignoring or actively failing the residents of West and East Baltimore. <em>The Wire<\/em> takes you inside City Hall and its power squabbles and venal dysfunction. <em>Charm City<\/em> illustrates that it might as well be on the moon as far as most Rose Street residents are concerned. As Long puts it at one point, \u201cAin\u2019t nobody gonna help us, man. We\u2019ve got to help each other.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There never was a real \u201c<strong>Hamsterdam<\/strong>\u201d police-led de facto drug-legalization experiment, or at least no such situation has ever been made public. But <strong>Kurt Schmoke<\/strong>, mayor from 1988 through 1999, entertained the idea of fighting the drug war in Baltimore by decriminalizing narcotics. He appears in a couple of episodes in this season, playing a public-health official.<\/p>\n<p>Remember Little Melvin? He takes up a recurring role this season and next, playing the Deacon, a churchman who\u2019s seen it all.<\/p>\n<p>[Here&#8217;s Little Melvin in a scene from the subsequent season:]<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=1YyDtx8valI<\/p>\n<p><strong>Season 4: Public Schools<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Burns also spent time as a teacher, and you can detect the metallic whir of his axe grinding when<em> The Wire<\/em> turns its attention to the city\u2019s public schools. The ongoing narrative adds a quartet of West Baltimore teens and goes inside the fictional Tilghman Middle, which is just as radically segregated and under-resourced as many actual Baltimore public schools.<\/p>\n<p>Over the course of the season, three of the four teenagers slip into their respective fates: the drug game, addiction, and a group home. Only one \u201cescapes\u201d to a stable middle-class life. <em>Charm City<\/em> makes those outcomes seem a little reductive by comparison. Getting tied up in the drug game isn\u2019t a life sentence, and neither is addiction. The real-life Alex Long, for example, is candid about a past arrest, but he clearly has not let that define him or his life.<\/p>\n<p>Drug enforcers entombing bodies in vacant rowhouses was never a thing. When the characters Chris Partlow and Snoop figure out if a new drug slinger is a member of a crew moving in from New York by asking him who did \u201c<strong>Jiggle It<\/strong>,\u201d a local hit in the \u201800s, it might be the second most Baltimore thing ever. (The correct answer is Young Leek.)<\/p>\n<p>You know the assistant principal at Tilghman? She\u2019s played by local actress Tootsie Duvall. She has a good Baltimore accent.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Wire | The First Day Of School\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r9vbGckm_bg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><strong>Season 5: Journalism<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The series wraps up with perhaps its least successful season, possibly because of a truncated schedule, and possibly because of a cockamamie plot line about McNulty inventing a serial killer to get police brass to sign off on the overtime needed to close the series\u2019 big case. Did not happen. It is a TV show, after all.<\/p>\n<p>The final season\u2019s storyline detours through the newsroom of the beleaguered <em>Baltimore Sun<\/em>, David Simon\u2019s former stomping grounds. Anyone who\u2019s ever worked in a newsroom can tell you that he captures it pretty well. When the city editor starts awake one night and drives to the office due to the dawning realization of a possible mistake in a story intruding on his sleep? Been there. Simon and Burns even give several former <em>Sun<\/em> journalists cameos, including mystery author Laura Lippman, Simon\u2019s wife.<\/p>\n<p>Simon does more than a little grinding too. An ambitious reporter (played by actor\/writer\/director Tom McCarthy) with a penchant for fabrication is rumored to have been based on at least one former <em>Sun<\/em> scribe. And Simon and Burns gave one raging-a-hole police lieutenant the surname Marimow\u2014just like a former <em>Sun<\/em> editor from the time Simon worked there.<\/p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Wire - It&#039;s a Bad Time for Newspapers\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gKM34ijnhzI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p><strong>More Right Than Wrong (But <em>Charm City<\/em> Even More So)<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>The Wire<\/em> dramatizes, and even glamorizes, some of the realities of Baltimore. But it gets more right than wrong. Behind Simon and Burns\u2019 Balzac-for-broadcast fiction, however, lies a more mundane world of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Baltimoreans with more ordinary problems\u2014people and communities trying to get by, and maybe get somewhere, in spite of the many systems that continue to fail them. <em>Charm City<\/em> gets them right.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><strong>Lee Gardner<\/strong> was formerly the editor of <\/em>Baltimore City Paper<em> (R.I.P.) and has written about movies on and off for almost 30 years. He co-produces the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wypr.org\/podcast\/essential-tremors\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Essential Tremors<\/a> podcast.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Lee Gardner Baltimoreans who venture beyond the I-695 beltway always know it\u2019s coming. We meet someone from another city, or another country. They find out we\u2019re from Baltimore, and after a suitably polite length of get-to-know-you chat, they bring up the award-winning HBO series\u00a0The Wire. And really, it\u2019s okay. There are worse things than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":18214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1357,939],"tags":[],"topic":[1216,1245,1246,1262,1225],"class_list":["post-18367","blog","type-blog","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beyond-the-films","category-lists","topic-arts-and-culture","topic-crime","topic-education","topic-labor","topic-politics-and-government"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What &#039;The Wire&#039; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore | Blog | Independent Lens<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In tandem with PBS premiere of &quot;Charm City&quot; a Former Baltimore City Paper editor revisits the acclaimed Baltimore-set series in search of accuracy.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What &#039;The Wire&#039; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore | Blog | Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Former Baltimore City Paper editor Lee Gardner revisists the acclaimed Baltimore-set series in search of accuracy. In tandem with PBS premiere of &quot;Charm City.&quot;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Independent Lens\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-29T00:05:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1080\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"9 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Independent Lens\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#\/schema\/person\/4cedb3eea460cdaac69638c5d476f7bf\"},\"headline\":\"What &#8220;The Wire&#8221; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore (and How &#8220;Charm City&#8221; Fills in the Rest)\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-16T20:39:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-29T00:05:40+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\"},\"wordCount\":1975,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Beyond the Films\",\"Lists\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\",\"name\":\"What 'The Wire' Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore | Blog | Independent Lens\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-04-16T20:39:23+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-29T00:05:40+00:00\",\"description\":\"In tandem with PBS premiere of \\\"Charm City\\\" a Former Baltimore City Paper editor revisits the acclaimed Baltimore-set series in search of accuracy.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg\",\"width\":1920,\"height\":1080,\"caption\":\"Kids in Rose Street, Baltimore, in Charm City\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Posts\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"What &#8220;The Wire&#8221; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore (and How &#8220;Charm City&#8221; Fills in the Rest)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/\",\"name\":\"Independent Lens\",\"description\":\"Independent Documentary Films\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#\/schema\/person\/4cedb3eea460cdaac69638c5d476f7bf\",\"name\":\"Independent Lens\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2b5c0f7775847014c2f5553ec273875f0a9d53d7393cbafef77867f9e0883487?s=96&r=g\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2b5c0f7775847014c2f5553ec273875f0a9d53d7393cbafef77867f9e0883487?s=96&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2b5c0f7775847014c2f5553ec273875f0a9d53d7393cbafef77867f9e0883487?s=96&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Independent Lens\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/author\/indielens\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"What 'The Wire' Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore | Blog | Independent Lens","description":"In tandem with PBS premiere of \"Charm City\" a Former Baltimore City Paper editor revisits the acclaimed Baltimore-set series in search of accuracy.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"What 'The Wire' Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore | Blog | Independent Lens","og_description":"Former Baltimore City Paper editor Lee Gardner revisists the acclaimed Baltimore-set series in search of accuracy. In tandem with PBS premiere of \"Charm City.\"","og_url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/","og_site_name":"Independent Lens","article_modified_time":"2023-08-29T00:05:40+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1920,"height":1080,"url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Est. reading time":"9 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/"},"author":{"name":"Independent Lens","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#\/schema\/person\/4cedb3eea460cdaac69638c5d476f7bf"},"headline":"What &#8220;The Wire&#8221; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore (and How &#8220;Charm City&#8221; Fills in the Rest)","datePublished":"2019-04-16T20:39:23+00:00","dateModified":"2023-08-29T00:05:40+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/"},"wordCount":1975,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg","articleSection":["Beyond the Films","Lists"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/","url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/","name":"What 'The Wire' Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore | Blog | Independent Lens","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg","datePublished":"2019-04-16T20:39:23+00:00","dateModified":"2023-08-29T00:05:40+00:00","description":"In tandem with PBS premiere of \"Charm City\" a Former Baltimore City Paper editor revisits the acclaimed Baltimore-set series in search of accuracy.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/charm-city-kids.jpg","width":1920,"height":1080,"caption":"Kids in Rose Street, Baltimore, in Charm City"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/what-the-wire-got-right-and-wrong-about-baltimore-and-how-charm-city-fills-in-the-rest\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Posts","item":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"What &#8220;The Wire&#8221; Got Right, and Wrong, About Baltimore (and How &#8220;Charm City&#8221; Fills in the Rest)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/","name":"Independent Lens","description":"Independent Documentary Films","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/#\/schema\/person\/4cedb3eea460cdaac69638c5d476f7bf","name":"Independent Lens","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2b5c0f7775847014c2f5553ec273875f0a9d53d7393cbafef77867f9e0883487?s=96&r=g","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2b5c0f7775847014c2f5553ec273875f0a9d53d7393cbafef77867f9e0883487?s=96&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/2b5c0f7775847014c2f5553ec273875f0a9d53d7393cbafef77867f9e0883487?s=96&r=g","caption":"Independent Lens"},"url":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/author\/indielens\/"}]}},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/18367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/blog"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18367"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/18367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27605,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog\/18367\/revisions\/27605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18367"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/independentlens\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=18367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}