Back at her desk, Guttierez is thumbing through her copy of Webster's New World Compact Office Dictionary, when she concedes that crusty old rewrite man Jay Spry was right to berate her for her terrible word choice. This is the first thing in The Wire's newspaper office scenes that rings false for me, as most of the reporters I've ever worked would react to a brusque correction -- rightly or wrongly -- by going back to their desk and fantasizing about braining the mouthy editor with a hardback edition of The Chicago Manual of Style. Guttierez returns to working on a couple of crime-and-dismemberment briefs, much to the disdain of her deskmate Scott Templeton. "It's a shit news town," Templeton says dismissively, pointing out that few stories that start in Baltimore ever go national. Guttierez counters that the bodies-in-the-abandoned-buildings story did. Yeah, and look at all the good that's done so far. Anyhow, Templeton is unmoved. Because he quivers with ambition, dammit, and don't you forget it.

Across the newsroom, Haynes starts calling for Jeff Price. Not only can't you get doctored photos past Gus Haynes; you also can't sneak buried items on the city council agenda. It seems that there's an otherwise routine item in the zoning section of the agenda in which the city is going to buy property from someone named Ricardo Hendrix in exchange for another property. So why is that news? Because, Haynes points out, Ricardo Hendrik is also known as "Fatface Rick" -- my, what a hurtful nickname -- and he not only owns a strip bar but is a drug dealer with a "record as young as your arm." ("A record as long as your arm"? If God resides in the details at the Baltimore Sun, apparently He has a nice weekend home in the Land o' Clichés, too.) Price is sent back to the city council meeting to find out who sponsored the bill. Gus dispatches Guttierez to Fatface Rick's strip club to get a comment from the proprietor. (Tip from one journalist to another: Maybe don't start by calling him Fatface Rick.) Haynes taps Templeton to go to the newspaper's morgue to pull clips on Ricardo Hendrix -- which Templeton is violently disappointed by, on account of his transparent ambition and all. "She goes to strip clubs, and I'm pulling clips in the morgue?" Templeton protests. It's a fair point -- we all deserve a nice trip to our local strip club.