Scene from the wire wherein Mayor of Baltimore Thomas Carcetti is made aware of the simulated deaths of a number of homeless men. Earlier in the series Detective McNulty tampers with several crime scenes to fabricate a hyperreal narrative to the deaths, most of which are unrelated and/or natural. The use of this simulation was what Baudrillard would call 'operational negativity' (the Police departments' budget had been recently cut by the mayor), using media tactics to create a series of deaths and draw attention to the necessity of well-funded policing. In this series a journalist for the Baltimore Sun, Scott Templeton, covers the homeless murders for the paper, wherein he manufactures a great deal of hyperreal stories to benefit himself as a journalist. My favourite, and most relevant line is Norman Wilson's (Mayor Carcetti's deputy campaign manager) "They manufactured an issue to get paid, we manufactured an issue to get you elected as governer. Everybody's getting what they need behind some.. make-believe."
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