The Chicago Tribune's Maureen Ryan has posted to the paper's site the full length of her interviews with David Simon, the creator of HBO's The Wire, and with John Carroll, Simon's former boss at the Baltimore Sun, who has been the object of Simon's scorn in his criticism of modern-day media.

While the newsroom served as the site of Simon's earlier career, it has also informed his work in television, providing the backdrop for much of the current, final season of The Wire, which Ryan calls his "indelible achievement." And while Simon and the show have much to say about society's ills, he himself claims to be "happily furious," which, in turn, comes through on The Wire. As Ryan writes,

the show’s great accomplishment is that it never preaches—it’s even quite funny at times, in a dry, roundabout way. Instead of rote lessons about urban decay, Simon’s conclusions arrive via meticulous character studies that rarely feel plotted or predictable. To watch the show is to be immersed in an interlocking series of utterly realistic worlds ... [and] to be impressed ... by how seamlessly the show weaves so many different worlds together ... Nothing happens in a vacuum; everything is linked.

To read the article and the complete interviews with Simon and Carroll, visit featuresblogs.chicagotribune.com.