The Wire - does Ethnography

Just a quick post today on The Wire. I watched it for the first time last night - it was OK I guess, but I’m a child of the 70s and 80s and for me Kojak and Hill Street Blues are much, much better. But in the course of doing some research for something else I came across some links for David Simon, the man who wrote The Wire. Lots of writers research their topic first, but I was interested to see that Simon used ethnographic methods to dig down into the Baltimore soil. It makes interesting reading and it reminded me how much I like the American ethnographic tradition. It really does get you under the skin of a culture.

Check out David Simon’s comments here: