David Simon, the Baltimore Sun reporter-turned-writer of “Homicide” and “The Wire,” has found a home on cable in the HBO network. Which is fine with him, because as he conceded at an appearance at the National Press Club on Monday, he has trouble keeping the four-letter words out of his speech or his scripts.
Discussing the future of journalism, Simon nearly let a colorful word or two slip early on, before catching himself. “I’m on C-SPAN,” he reasoned. “It’s cable, but it’s not my cable.”
But his restraint didn’t last long. Only a few minutes later, he let the word “a*****e” slip out while he discussed his TV career.
He later revealed that he’s putting the finishing touches on a new show about people returning to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. Where will it air? HBO, of course. “Pottymouth can’t write for anyone other than HBO,” he joked.
Simon also offered some counterintuitive advice for any aspiring journalists who happened to be watching. “One that that worked for me is I managed not to get promoted. I started on the police beat, I ended up on the police beat and managed to parlay that into something.”
And how did he learn about “Life on the Street” in Baltimore? “Imagine a white guy in his mid-20s going up [to drug dealers] and asking, ‘So, you guys are selling drugs? How does that work?’ ”
