Scott Templeton

Scott Templeton is a young reporter on the Baltimore Sun's city desk, hungry for the kind of front-page story that gets a career noticed. He's personable and diligent in the newsroom, quick with vivid quotes and colorful color, and eager to please his editors with copy that always seems to land just right.

The Wire uses him to indict the incentives of a shrinking newsroom, and Tom McCarthy plays the ambition with disarming, boyish sincerity rather than obvious villainy. His eagerness to please reads as talent until you notice how conveniently his best material arrives, which is exactly the point.