Truth be told, Stephen Janis thinks The Wire is OK. But he's no fanatic of the recently-concluded HBO series, a production so unanimously adored that proclaiming it the best TV show of all time has become a cliché. His heresyer, ambivalencecan be easily explained. "I've got a front-row seat for what it depicts," Janis says, referring to his work as a senior reporter for Investigative Voice, a muckraking news website in Baltimore. The site was launched in 2009 after Janis lost his job at the Baltimore Examiner, a short-lived competitor to the Baltimore Sun that never got off the ground.
Janis spoke with Gelf last year about his new news venture, formed almost immediately after the Examiner shut down. This time, Janis has a novel under his belt and a year's experience making it as an independent journalist in a very violent city. Given his work in both fact and fantasy, Janis is in a good position to determine just how real The Wire keeps it. In the following interview, which was conducted by phone and edited for length and clarity, Janis also discusses his new book, This Dream Called Death, a surreal tale of big-city malaise, the evolution of his website, and why the city of Baltimore should follow the lead of Afghanistan.
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