David Simon, Bill Marimow feud revisited
David Simon's Baltimore Sun press card
I wish there had been one more question in today’s New York Times Q-and-A with David Simon — something like, “Your thoughts on Bill Marimow returning to the newsroom?” (Check out these Simon-Marimow tweets that were posted yesterday after Marimow was named Inquirer editor for the second time.)
UPDATE: Jeremy Egner tweets that his interview was held before Marimow announcement.
There’ve been a lot of words written about the journalists’ feud over the years, but here are some links in case you haven’t followed their spat:
Bill Marimow
* David Simon in 2006: That the Lt. Charlie Marimow character in “The Wire” and Bill Marimow “are, in my opinion, perhaps not the best leaders of their respective organizations or units, is, I’m afraid, entirely random and coincidental. They are not the same person; in fact, only one of them actually exists.”
* Bill Marimow in 2008: “I deeply resent Simon’s dishonest efforts to revise history.”
* Marimow in 2010: “In my opinion, his assertion that John [Carroll] and I destroyed the [Baltimore Sun] is documentably untrue. This is a grudge which now extends more than a decade and is demeaning not to us but to him. To hold a grudge that long poisons the grudge-holder.”
* David Simon on wearying “Wire” love and the surprising usefulness of Twitter
http://www.esquire.com/features/essay/david-simon-0308
Since you asked.
What I find fascinating in all of it is the Dickensian aspect …
Who’s right? Both? Neither? I wish some people who worked at the Sun during the Carroll-Marimow period would weigh in.
Both and neither, I think. In none of these examinations are the editors asked directly about Simon’s charge that they went shallow and chased prizes. It’s always set up that Simon was depicting them as venal corporate toadies carrying out layoffs. But that was only a part of it, and a relatively small part, I think. The bigger problem, assuming Simon’s portrayal was close to accurate, was their going for The Dickensian Aspect, etc.: That they were more interested in selling stories than in telling them; that they ignored substance in favor of style in both reporters and stories; that they went for the Big and Important while ignoring the big and important.
I don’t know that anyone who has asked either editor about The Wire has brought up these things – the interviewers always focus on the layoffs. But though Simon has them spewing corporate nonsense about doing more with less, I never got the idea that he was blaming them for the layoffs – only for handling them so badly and perhaps for not fighting them strongly enough.
The problem here is, both editors are widely respected in the industry, including by many working-stiff reporters. I assume that working for them wasn’t nearly as bad as working for many of their contemporaries at other papers would have been. But they are the editors Simon happened to be working for when all the shit started coming down.
That’s the kind of information I was hoping someone would post. Thanks.
To be clear, I never worked with or for any of these people. Just an outside observation from watching the saga unfold over the years, informed somewhat by working in newsrooms as the industry crumbled and regional newspapers became more and more inane.
I worked for Marimow and Carroll, and worked with Simon. While both editors were imperfect and did handle many things badly, many of us would work for them again. They were good journalists. We didn’t always agree with them, or the stories they chased (or wanted chased), but that did not mean they ruined the paper. The paper is in the position it is now for a great number of reasons, all of which cannot be blamed on those two men.
This is not to say that Simon didn’t have some valid points. But a lot of that has been lost in the level of bitterness Simon’s shown over the years, especially since it seemed like he never passed up an opportunity to trash those two men and the paper.
Simon may profess to speak such truths out of love for the paper that gave him his start, or as the one true voice upholding the purity of journalism. But could it have anything to do with the fact that his tremendous ego was bruised when he returned from a book leave to learn that he was no longer the Chosen One? As with all editors, Carroll and Marimow had their own stars to promote.
It’s a shame because all three are talented. All three have worked hard to achieve great things. Simon should let this go already. To borrow a word from him, it’s wearying.
My theory is that if Simon had worked for any number of other editors who were far worse than those guys — of the type that have only grown in number, especially at regional dailies, since his time — his head would have exploded.
As I said, he had no basis for comparison, since that was the only paper he ever worked for. Those were the editors he had when things started going bad, so he — unfairly if somewhat understandably — took it out on them even though things were far worse elsewhere, and would get much worse at the Sun itself shortly thereafter.