we own this city. That's the name of a new six-part HBO series

executive produced by David Simon, famed for series including The Wire.

This time, the crime drama based in Baltimore is based on real life

and a book of the same name by former Baltimore son reporter Justin Fenton.

So how does a true story about the rise and fall of the Baltimore police departments

gun trace task force? How does it move from book to script to stage and not a streaming service?

And what changes along the way? What choices are made journalistically and then dramatically?

While those are a couple of the questions for this week's reliable sources podcast, let's cue the music.

I'm Brian Stelter and this weekly podcast is our chance to go in depth

with media leaders and newsmakers talking about the story behind the story.

And David Simon knows all about that.

He was in a former life a reporter at the Baltimore son covering the city.

He wrote the book Homicide a year on the Killing Streets,

which became the basis for the NBC series Homicide Life on the Street.

He was a writer and a producer on that project.

But he's probably still best known for creating The Wire, the HBO series that began in 2002

and has been viewed and reviewed by fans ever since.

He has been busy in recent years with projects like The Plot Against America

and his most recent project executive producing we own this city.

Many of his projects are in and about and around Baltimore, including his newest work.

So I wanted to talk with him about the differences between the journalism that he sometimes uses as the basis for projects

and the dramatic work that he creates.

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