[2] As a reporter Zorzi has been described as tough and cranky and characteristically refused to accept free gifts (including food) from the politicians he was covering.
[3] Zorzi worked for 13 years on the passion project that eventually became the 2015 HBO miniseries Show Me a Hero, which he created with Simon.
[4][5][6][2] The project was to be "about the volatile events surrounding a federal public housing desegregation case in Yonkers, NY.
"[2] In 2001, Simon sent Zorzi, who at that time was assistant city editor at The Baltimore Sun, a copy of Lisa Belkin's book Show Me a Hero: A Tale of Murder, Suicide, Race, and Redemption, which he was taking to HBO as a potential project.
Fellow writer George Pelecanos commented that he knew that anything he wrote for the political story line would be extensively re-written by Simon and Zorzi.
[19] Following production of the fourth season Zorzi spent a year teaching Journalism at the Baltimore Freedom Academy, a public high school in the city.