Way back when, David Simon was a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He wrote a book called Homicide: A year on the killing streets of Baltimore, which should be read by any aspiring police reporter.

That book formed the basis for a TV series, Homicide: Life on the Street, which was one of my favourite shows in the 1990s.

But Simon -- best known these days as the creator of The Wire -- now laments the state of police reporting in his home town.

Toronto Star public editor Kathy English is aghast at the nastiness that percolates in the online comments of TheStar.com -- those would be the moderated comments.

They raise some questions for her.

This is a very sobering cautionary tale of the hidden human cost of the U.S. recession -- probably the Canadian one too.