If you are like me, you couldn’t wait until the January 1st premier of HBO’s The Wire on Demand. After four seasons of intelligent writing, multi-dimensional characters and a changing focus on the layers of dysfunction that plague our society, I am very excited about the final season of The Wire. This season has promised to deliver an intense look at the intersection between media, crime, politics, and law enforcement. Whew! What a deliciously ambitious season.

For years, social critics have pointed to media coverage as a leading culprit in the shaping of America’s linear and fragmented responses to issues that involve crime and justice. I believe Chris Rock even jokingly questioned the role of “the media” in shaping his fear of certain communities. But even as “the media” is growing and changing to accommodate the many ways in which people digest information, many of us still yearn to get a good look at how the old newsroom operates and how it might be influenced by–or influencing–biases, interpretations of crime, and other convoluted personal or systemic functions that guide what the public swallows as news…and what we never get to know.

Hopefully, this season will spark more than water cooler chit chat. Maybe, just maybe, it will give us permission from the popular culture to voice our legitimate concerns about the various media which refine our messages. Maybe, just maybe, it will give us permission to change not only how we see crime, but how we talk about it. We’ll see…if you’re like me, you’ll stay tuned.

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