Simon attacks newspaper owners and free content

There were some interesting comments from the creator of the Wire,David Simon being interviewed in the Guardian yesterday.

Besides launching an attack on newspaper owners whom he described as showing "contempt for their product" he said that

he fears a real-life explosion of rampant corruption in American political life if the newspaper industry, in which he worked for more than a decade, is allowed to collapse.

His solution for the industry is to start charging for the product

"If you don't have a product that you're charging for, you don't have a product," he says. "If you think that free is going to produce something that's as much of a cost centre as good journalism – because it costs money to do good journalism – you're out of your mind."