Serial Didn’t Free Adnan Syed
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: I’m just going to sit here and drink. Drink, mighty of justice. It’s my view of justice and say, I told you so. Hi, I’m Rachel Hampton.
Daisy Rosario: And I’m Daisy Rosario. And you’re listening to ICYMI.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: In Case You Missed It.
Daisy Rosario: Slate’s podcast about Internet culture.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: And we are back with Daisy Davey.
Daisy Rosario: Welcome back. Thank you. Honestly, I might be a little too excited to be here today.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Y’all can’t see her because this is a podcast. But Daisy’s doing those, like, warm up jumps you might see before someone, like, runs up the Rocky stairs like that. That’s how excited she is to be here. I think I’ve said this in the past, but because Daisy is our supervising producer, that means that even when you don’t hear her voice on the show, she’s always there. And not in a creepy way, but in like a lovingly staring down at you from heaven, telling you that you pronounce something incorrectly. Anyway, what this means is that this Monday, September 19th, as we were preparing our most recent episode, Many Deer and I were screaming into the Void about letting bitches be angry online. Daisy was doing something more important.
Daisy Rosario: I mean, I don’t know that it was more important, but my whole body reacted to it. I was trying to follow along with the Adnan Syed hearing that was happening in Baltimore on Monday. There were reporters live tweeting about it as it was going on. And in case you don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the case made famous by Serial or as I like to think about it, the case that made Serial a juggernaut.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: A very important clarification. So I listen to Serial around the same time everyone else did because I love to follow the crowd in the fall and winter of like 2014 and early 2015 was when it was being released. I was an undergrad at the time doing a degree in journalism, so of course this is all anyone could ever fucking talk about. So like all the other basic bitches, I was like, Let me listen to my first podcast. And for a while, as in years, Serial was the only podcast I had ever listened to. I really didn’t get into podcasts regularly into the pandemic, which means that for me and for a lot of people, serial looms really large. But despite that, I really didn’t keep up with the updates on Adnan’s case until this year. I think somewhere in the back of my mind I was like, if there’s any important update that’s going to exonerate him, I’ll hear about it from the serial team.
Daisy Rosario: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s an understandable feeling to have as a listener. And for many people, the new 17 minute episode of Serial is how they heard about some of the details of Adnan’s release, even though they probably saw a headline about his release somewhere before that, it was everywhere. But one of the strangest parts about all of this is that there have been many, many major updates and breakthroughs in this case over the last few years. And, you know, these are updates that you only would have heard about if you had taken it upon yourself to continue to follow the case after. Right. So this is where it gets probably a little embarrassing for me. When Serial first premiered to Friends and I did a recap podcast about it. All right.
Daisy Rosario: Welcome back, everybody. It is time for another episode of Serially Obsessed because we’re totally obsessed with Serial. I’m Daisy Rosario.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: I’m dirty. Throw it. I’m Lila Carillo.
Daisy Rosario: It was a comedic endeavor, like I acknowledged on the show that I was a journalist, but we were definitely doing it as a comedy podcast. These are friends I made through comedy, so I ended up keeping up with the story. You know, I stopped making my show mostly because we were so bored with serial season two that by the end of it we couldn’t do the show anymore.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Incredible.
Daisy Rosario: So, yeah, you know, it’s like I kept up with it. I stopped making my show, but I did follow the story and I listen to other shows like Undisclosed. And I’m not the only recap here that kept up with the story after.
Speaker 3: What’s problematic in retrospect is a few things. Serial did make a lot of mistakes in their own reporting that were revealed very shortly after the show ended. A huge one being that the cell tower evidence that they used to produce an entire episode that potentially placed Adnan Syed in the area where Hae Min Lee his body was buried, that cell phone evidence is junk.
Speaker 3: And the guy who created the report that was used in announcing his trial is the same guy who says that cell phone tower evidence is junk. And he came out at a hearing in 2017, testified saying it was junk and a non Syed’s conviction was overturned at that time, in large part because of that testimony they had that report, Serial did, and they used it to produce an episode and they did not have him in the episode. They could have contacted him and he could have given them that information. They didn’t do it. And then that episode continued to remain up with no disclaimer at all, saying, Hey guys, we reported this back in 2015. Since then it’s been learned that blah blah, blah, blah blah. No disclaimer of any kind.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: That’s Rebecca Lavoie the hosts of Crime Writers on, which is a true crime podcast that looks at other true crime media, TV shows, movies and podcasts like Serial, A True Crime or a Boris, some might say. And according to Rebecca, that’s not the only update the serial should have offered in the intervening years between when the show came out and 2022 when Adnan Syed was released from prison.
Daisy Rosario: No, not at all. I mean, additionally, there was an HBO documentary a few years ago directed by Amy Berg that was called The Case Against Adnan said in that documentary, we meet the actual woman who was on Serial who was known as not her real name, Cathy This. The person who said there are none had showed up with Jay at her house the day that Hae Min Lee went missing. And her testimony is a big part of the story about how Adnan spent that day and what his demeanor was like. So the documentary shows that her memory is not from the day of the crime. She wasn’t interviewed by police until six weeks later. And I mean, this is something that Serial acknowledges. I mean, one of the things they talk about quite a bit is how hard it would be to remember, like the details of a random day of your life after the fact, like this far after the fact. But even still, like after this information came out, they didn’t put any update anywhere.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: As someone who considers herself fairly online, I’m going to say generously, it was honestly, really shocking to me to realize how much of this case I had missed. I knew the documentary had come out, but I’m not going to lie when I saw it. I just thought it was a documentary about serious reporting. There’s this kind of new trend of podcasts being made into documentaries or docu series, and I thought that’s what it was.
Daisy Rosario: Oh yeah, that’s fair.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: And I don’t think you’d come away realizing how much of that documentary diverged from, if not outright disprove, Cyril’s original reporting.
Daisy Rosario: Just based on how many people online were attributing Adnan’s release to Serial and to Serial alone, which was driving me mad and we will get into that more. I think you’re right, and that’s what today’s episode is all about. After a short break, we’ll be back with Rebecca to talk about Serial, what it missed and how it’s in Rebecca’s words, words I love gentrified the true crime industry.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: And we’re back, as I said before the break. I think that I, like most people who encountered and consumed cereal, didn’t think there had been any major breakthroughs in the case since 2015 when the podcast wrapped. I now know that’s extremely untrue, not least because Adnan Syed was released from prison on Monday, September 19th. A judge vacated his murder conviction, quote, In the interest of justice and fairness and prosecutors have a month to decide whether to proceed to a new trial or drop the charges. As someone who has actually been keeping up with this case, which do you think is more likely? Daisy.
Daisy Rosario: Yeah. I mean, right now the general consensus is that the state is probably pretty unlikely to proceed with a new trial. Part of that is because the judge ordered Siyad released on his own recognizance. That’s how he got home, which is, you know, not something that’s usually done if they really think that the person is guilty of a violent crime like murder. But also the motion that was filed on September 14th, that is what actually led to the hearing on Monday. It mentions other legitimate suspects, among many other issues, with the police investigation all those years ago.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: I mean, speaking of issues, one of the things that made its way into my feed as this hearing was happening was that Hayes brother called in and was saying, this isn’t a podcast to me. I keep having to relive this and that isn’t fun.
Daisy Rosario: Of course. Right. And I don’t want Haymon, Lee’s family or Hae Min Lee as the victim herself to get lost in any of this. And I think that that’s something that feels icky for any of us throughout this. But, you know, flip side of this, as we learn more, not just about this case, right, but like the sheer amount of wrongful convictions in this country and the wildly disproportionate, you know, ways that the criminal justice system impacts people of like certain backgrounds versus others. Right. Like it’s not actually justice for Hae Min Lee if the person who didn’t do it is the one in prison. It’s really just ruining another family. So I think that that’s just something that we always have to grapple with as we learn more about the criminal justice system overall.
Daisy Rosario: And yeah, let’s not forget that, because I do see that, right? Like I see that sometimes of people being like, well, it’s disrespectful to, you know, the victim’s family. And it’s like, okay, there’s also a devastated, you know, mother, father and son said who are missing their family member a lot. And so I think we never want to forget the victims, but we have to be mindful of what we mean when we’re talking about justice.
Daisy Rosario: And so, yeah, I mean, that’s just really complicated. And I mean, Monday was a heck of a day online. There was a lot that was going on. But I mean, like the things that were like really, really getting under my skin were apparently the same for Rebecca. One is that, as we mentioned just before the break, so many people were giving Serial and Sarah Koenig all of the credit for this incredible turn of events. But also this lack of updates from Serial that’s like violating journalism. 101 It’s so basic.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Extremely basic. I know that as a journalist. But for our audience, who may not be journalists, why is this so, like, unfathomable? It’s the both of us.
Daisy Rosario: Well, I mean, we’ll get into it. Think of it this way. Right. Like you ever go read an older story on a news site? Like, let’s just think of The New York Times, for instance. Right. If there have been updates, the original text of the story is still there. But there’s also usually a note noticeable high at the top or right at the very end of the story, or maybe even a banner or something that will point out the updates, or if the story gets something wrong, they’re going to issue a correction, and it’s right there on the page. There is no version of either of those things on any of the episodes of Serial.
Speaker 3: I would never, ever tell a reporter they have to continue reporting a story in perpetuity. Like I wrote books years ago that I now know things about that like are different and that if there were ever a reprint, I would 100% be like, Let’s put a new front page here so I can just acknowledge it. But there isn’t going to be a reprint because books, you know, are not bestsellers. But I’ll say it whenever I get the chance, because I think that’s important. This could be a digitally inserted disclaimer. Sarah does not have to report a damn thing. The New York Times could put a digitally inserted disclaimer that says this reporting took place in 2014 and 2015. There have been significant updates to the case since then, and some of the details in this podcast are now factually incorrect, or there are updates that you should pay attention to. Please go to the New York Times dot com slash serial for an update like all it would take.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: The closest analogy I could think of that could maybe justify this is that there’s no way to append corrections to print pieces that are to go out into the world. Right. Like you do in your morning newspaper. It’s in print. Print lost forever. And so maybe Serial is pretending that they’re like a magazine. I don’t know. But even if I say that, I know it makes no sense. But that is really the only reason I could think of. That doesn’t make this straight up journalistic malpractice. And I say that because in a past life, I’ve checked print magazines and you bet your ass if I got something wrong. They put a correction both on the Web version and in the next print issue.
Daisy Rosario: Absolutely right. And it’s also that The New York Times specifically are being hypocrites about it. A few years ago, they had that podcast, Caliphate.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Oh, oh, Caliphate.
Daisy Rosario: I mean.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: That was a mess.
Daisy Rosario: A mess in so many ways. We’re not even going to get into all of that. But the gist is that right, like the show won a Peabody Award. Then they found out that there was unreliable information in the show. So the Times returned the award and retracted the series. But retracting does not mean erasing. You can still go to the New York Times site and listen to the show and see the supporting information from when they put out the original package. But there’s also a big editors note right under the title that links you to updates about that in an interview with the Times executive editor. So why haven’t they at least put up some kind of note about Serial?
Daisy Rosario: And question for you, Rachel. Oh, when you did listen to Serial originally, what were you left with? Like. Like where did you come down on the idea of Adnan’s guilt or innocence?
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Oh, okay. You’re asking me to remember back to 2014, 2015, and maybe because it’s been so long ago, I’m to be completely honest, I don’t remember. I actually checked my text messages to see if I may be talked about this with a friend at the time, because, yes, I still have all my text messages from 2014, but I didn’t say anything at least over text, which makes me think I didn’t have a strong opinion one way or the other.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: I remember kind of instinctively having this intensely allergic reaction to Sarah Koenig, saying that the cops who interrogated Adnan were, quote, basically good guys and remember wanting to hear more about like the racial politics of the time. This is a crime that took place in Baltimore in the early aughts. I was like, this is fascinating from a racial perspective, but I don’t remember hearing any of that. But I also don’t remember feeling super strongly that he hadn’t done it. Sure. And I think I remember if I did. But what I do remember feeling strongly about was that the show was good enough to recommend that several people, including my mom and I think it’s still the only podcast you listen to all the way through. I know she did. That was in every episode of the show.
Daisy Rosario: My mother also does not probably anything I make. Overall like. Yeah, I think that’s fair. Right? Like, some people were definitely, like, deeply passionate about whether or not they thought Adnan was guilty or innocent and like either direction. But I would say that the thing I probably heard most often from people at the time, especially, is someone actively making a show about it. Then was, I would say most people seem to come to the idea of like, well, I do think he did it, but he shouldn’t have been convicted on such weak evidence. Right. Like that. That to me is I don’t have scientific proof of it, but that to me feels like the thing that I’ve heard most people say that they come away with or most people say that they came away with most consistently. And there’s also a lot of people like your mom, who have maybe only ever listened to Serial. Right. And that’s part of why this is so frustrating. Rebecca had a better example of this.
Speaker 3: If you went to the hairdresser today, like I have a haircut tonight, right? I’m going to go to get my haircut tonight. And if in two chairs down from me, some lady asked the woman cutting her hair, I don’t mean to be gendered, but it is all women who go to my hair salon says, Hey, I’m just getting into podcast. What should I listen to? The person in the chair next to them will say, You should listen to Serial. That is what is going to happen. That conversation is happening with hundreds of thousands of people to day.
Speaker 3: So today someone is going to listen to episodes one through ten of Serial and they may even listen to this update that happened. And they’re still going to think, you know, it not could I done it? I listen to Serial and thought I’m I don’t know. But I know he didn’t get a fair trial and I know there wasn’t enough evidence, but no one could possibly know what really happened before. I like literally learned anything else, but it didn’t take long for me to learn like one or two other facts that like, completely I mean, all you need to know is what happened to Jay Wildes to know that everything he said to the police was for a reason. And this was a very common tactic of the Baltimore police. This was not a situation that was unusual in any way for a witness like Jay Wilds to tell a extremely complicated and specific story that helped them arrest somebody.
Speaker 3: This happened all the time in Philadelphia. In Baltimore. These were like two cities in particular on the East Coast that have had like tons and tons and tons and tons of convictions looked at overturned because of this exact tactic. You have a person in trouble, particularly a person that’s vulnerable, young drug dealer, like lots to lose. You can get them to do anything. And that is very, very much what happened to Jay Wild in this case. Like, it’s it’s just so obvious. It’s so incredibly obvious. And it takes, like, almost nothing to get there. And the fact that that wasn’t even considered, it really is incredible. But if you only listen to Serial, which even I did at the time, I was like, Man, maybe. I mean, it’s got to be there in A.J., right?
Daisy Rosario: I mean. Yeah, right. Like, I don’t blame the lady in the hairdresser’s chair.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: That lady is my mother and to a lesser extent, me. I mean, what’s funny is that I’m actually home in Texas right now. And so my mom saw me watching the HBO documentary to prepare for this episode, and she was like, Oh yeah, we listened to that together. And I told her the updates on the case that Adnan had been released and she was so surprised, not least by the fact that he had been released, but also about all of this evidence that’s come out since the year that led to his conviction, evidence that was available at the time that through it came out. And I think that more than anything really made me sit back and think about I don’t know how else to describe it, but the vibe of Serial.
Daisy Rosario: MM Right.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: I’ve talked so much about how deeply I dislike true crime, and one of the reasons is because a lot of it relies on this idea that a conviction is something to cheer for, that a life sentence is something to be happy about, even as wrongful convictions are not only basically stealing somebody’s life, but sentencing them to in a lot of cases, as we know now, horrible conditions, a COVID infection, harassment and a lot of times assault. And yet I remember at the time that I was showing my mom this podcast, I felt really comfortable debating with her about whether or not Adnan had done it. Like I thought it was a fun little thing to do on a car trip. Was this in a serial? And I think a lot of that had to do with how the show was framed.
Daisy Rosario: Absolutely. So I’m just going to squeeze in drag race moments when I can. I mean, absolutely. I think so many of us felt like that was an interesting conversation. Right. Like who’s lying, Adnan or Jay? Like we get caught up in it. And so a degree I do think there’s aspects of that that are just human, but it’s also. Right. Like, it’s not your mom’s job to be fully up to date on a piece of media that she took in years ago. It is, however, the times this job now that they own cereal because they bought cereal productions to follow one of the most basic aspects of journalistic ethics.
Daisy Rosario: It’s also one of the things that stays with me as a journalist who used to recap the show from a comedic perspective. Like, I know if I went back and I listened to the show, I would probably cringe so much. But also I’m Afro-Latina and the blindspots that Sara brought with her around racism, Islamophobia and the realities of the criminal justice system for people of color overall were things that stuck out to me even then. You know, and if anything, our language around how we talk about these things has gotten better, right? Like, let’s think about everything that has happened, not in criminal justice, but everything that has happened in the world since Serial was published originally in 2014. Right.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Don’t make me.
Daisy Rosario: I know it’s hard, it hurts. But it’s like we may be in a societal backlash against progress like right now, but we have developed a better vocabulary. And yet, with the way that Sarah Koenig and the serial team are handling this whole situation, it just makes it seem even more tone deaf.
Speaker 3: If the serial team, if they were still serial productions, which was the spinoff company from This American Life, if they independently decided, hey, we don’t care, we stand by it, we don’t care. Like, we could just be like, you know what? That team has a lot of hubris, which, you know, people know that they do. That is just actually a thing. And they actually did a whole podcast called The Trojan Horse Affair, which is basically about the amount of hubris they have. So, you know, that’s a fact. But The New York Times now owns this product. It is shocking to me that The New York Times would be okay with us. It is shocking to me.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: And Rebecca’s not the only one who’s shocked. After a short break, we’re going to talk about some of the some might say well deserved backlash to that. Hubris ensues, unavoidable impact on the rest of the podcast industry.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Hi. I hope you’re enjoying today’s show. If this is your first time listening to I see why my man and welcome. We’re thrilled to have you here. In case you missed it. That’s what I see. Why my stands for. And also, our show comes out twice a week on Wednesdays and Saturdays. So make sure you never miss an episode like this past Wednesdays, which was all about the ethics of speaking ill of the dead online. The tagline could be described as Let bitches be mad on Twitter. You don’t want to miss it. Check it out. And we’re back, Daisy. This is tweet that you dropped in our planning channel from Rabia Chaudhry, the lawyer who’s there meets with at the beginning of Serial. Rabia wrote, People keep telling me we wouldn’t be here without ate cereal.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: True. But here’s the best analogy I can come up with about it. Imagine you ask someone to help renovate your house. Instead, they set fire to it. The story about the fire brings thousands to your aid. There you build your house. So I’d say you and Rebecca were some of those thousands that help rebuild that house. But I’m curious if you were to do one last episode of Serial Obsessed, trying to contend with everything that’s happened since. What do you think would be the most important thing to say?
Daisy Rosario: Okay. I love this question in part because it’s a tough one. Do you want to say before I answer it, though, like I don’t think Ravi or what counts among those people like Michele even got mentioned in her book and she, like, shaded us a little and she was not wrong. Like, honestly, she was. Oh, but like, so like respect. But I mean, yeah, it’s like it is really tough because if I could say one thing, if I had to choose literally one thing, it would be to point people towards the other. Incredible reporting that people have done around this story, most notably Robbie as podcast undisclosed. Right. I think if you look at the actual legal aspects of this case, it is possible that Adnan could have eventually gone free. Marilyn Mosby, who is the state attorney for Baltimore, you know, her administration has been reviewing multiple cases, not just famous ones like this is part of her push has been this idea of justice, not conviction. Right. Wow.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Wow. Groundbreaking. Have you I mean, have been the system in the first place?
Daisy Rosario: There’s some other stuff about her that people should be aware of.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: But, you know, we do not stand politicians in this household.
Daisy Rosario: Exactly right. But it’s a good model. Right. And so when it comes down to it, I think in many ways we actually do overstate the role that Serial played in this case because it had such a big cultural impact, you know? I mean, thinking back to my own podcast, I remember feeling like I had to defend Serial and its stylistic choices because people forget how hard the divide was between hard news and like things that were more casual, right? Like at the time I was even working with a host at my day job who had been on CNN at one point. And so she would like slip into that, like I am a serious journalist voice and we like we as a staff are working with her to get her to sound more casual the way that a lot of narration of podcasts has become.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Having joined the industry post serial, I think the freedom and the kind of ubiquity of sounding casual on a show I take for granted. I mean, especially considering that I have this show which a lot of you think is unscripted, it’s not. It takes a lot of work to make it sound like it is. You’re welcome. But that ubiquity can pretty directly be attributed to serial. And I’m not the only one saying that. Rebecca agrees.
Speaker 3: You know, I talked about Serial at the time. It was a groundbreaking piece of media that cannot be denied, and we would not be here talking about anything were it not for that project. That is like just a fact. So insofar as it deserves credit for anything, it just deserves credit for its existence. Okay. It made podcast mainstream. It made, let’s say, like white ladies in Kansas. Listen to podcast. Now, they didn’t used to be the case. Right. And you know, it also the other thing it did was it turned true crime from a back of the bookstore trash shelf into a mainstream, no longer being ashamed to admit it. Media product. We were all consuming it anyway, but now we just talk about the fact that we’re consuming it. So that’s, you know, public radio people now talk about the fact that they like true crime. So, you know, that’s that’s kind of what it did.
Daisy Rosario: Yeah. I think my biggest thing is that I want to acknowledge the impact of serial on all of us, but also hold it up to journalistic standards.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Yeah, it’s a piece of journalism and the team is defending it as a piece of journalism. And so if they want to hold it up as a piece of journalism, if they want to keep that Peabody Award that they won, then they need to be held to the same standards that the rest of us are. And speaking of standards, I think we have to talk about the impact, the seal on what I unfortunately call the true crime industrial complex. Yes.
Daisy Rosario: Yes.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Serial didn’t invent true crime. It didn’t invent true crime podcasts, despite what a lot of people seem to think. It did, however, make you respectable. Oh.
Speaker 3: Do you know what people and people say, like Serial is responsible for this explosion of true crime? It reminds me of like, people saying that, like, Brooklyn didn’t exist before. White people lived there.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Oh, oh.
Daisy Rosario: You just stabbed me in the gut as a Brooklyn native. But yes, I feel that.
Speaker 3: That’s that’s that’s how I feel about it. It’s like this was the gentrification of true crime, not the beginning of the existence of true crime. Right. Dateline has been on the air forever. 2020 turned into a true crime show like in the nineties. Nancy Grace has a whole career around this. This is not a new phenomenon. It’s a phenomenon we’ve always been interested in. Unsolved Mysteries. The movie Adam, any serial killer story you have ever watched or listened to or. Consumed in your entire life. Hate to break it to you. That was true crime, but Serial made it okay for like middle class white people to, like, embrace the genre and talk about the fact that they’re consuming. It is basically what Serial did, and it did give birth to chat shows in which untalented people can now make money.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: As I said before, I really love the fact that Rebecca called it gentrification.
Daisy Rosario: My God, it felt so right and it.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Felt so right. And as gentrification tends to do it, made everything worse.
Daisy Rosario: Made everything worse, but in a way that on the surface makes people think it made everything better.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Exactly.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: There’s this tweet from radio producer and reporter Sonari GLINTON who wrote this show. The show being Serial, has spawned the viral genre of true crime, which turned the reporter into the star and infantilize minorities. And I could not agree more. I don’t think we have murder arenas without serial like people always been interested in murder, in death, in fear killers in unsolved mysteries. Yeah. Bitches used to watch people get their heads cut off in the town square. And that was entertainment for the week. Like Don’t get me started on the lynching postcards. Humans are fundamentally voyeuristic and kind of terrifying, if you think about it too hard. Try not to. Yeah. Yeah, but. And correct me if I’m wrong, if I’m having the bias of coming up in this industry at this time, but I don’t think before zero, it was really something that you casually bring up at a watercooler. I don’t think it was normal or let alone celebrated to have a favorite murder.
Daisy Rosario: Yeah, I mean, I think that’s right. You know, I mean, like, yeah, people would talk about certain big crimes and things like that. And I’m sure like back in the day before, the myriad options that the Internet gave us. Like if there was like a movie of the week about a murder, you probably would have talked about it at the WaterCooler, but it wasn’t the shared hobby the way that it became. Also, honestly, I feel like it’s an insult to the mother, Sarah, that I think of when it comes to podcasting, like Sarah Marshall did not make you’re wrong about me or nothing about how media approaches various cases.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Okay. Speaking of Sarah Marshall, if you want to hear her on, I think I might go listen to an episode from April called the Girlboss Vacation or Casual Sex. I’m biased, but I love the episode.
Daisy Rosario: I mean, it is a great episode and I’m also so jealous that it happened before I got here. I do want to like thank Rebecca for talking to us. It was so great to talk to her and to really just connect with somebody who is also a journalist, but also used to do a recap show. And she’s just smart and she articulated so many feelings I was having. So what a great opportunity to connect with her. Rebecca, thanks for your time. You should check out her show Crime Writers on, which is a very ethical, true crime podcast. But I guess like, truly right. Like, if I could leave our dear I.S. y my audience with one thought, it would be that the most accurate thing in serial season one is the way that Sarah Koenig describes Rabia, which I will read to you from a transcript of the first episode of the show, because we are not going to play a clip. Rabia is 40. She’s short and she’s got a beautiful round face framed by hijab. She’s adorable looking, but you definitely shouldn’t mess with her. She’s very smart and very tough. And she could crush you.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Yeah, but. Oh right but as the show we’ll be back in your feed on Wednesdays so please subscribe. It is the best way to never miss an episode. To never miss a true crime takedown. There will be more. I will never stop please. Every rating and review now iPlayer. Spotify. Tell your friends about us. Don’t tell your murder. Reno’s about us. You can follow us on Twitter. I see on my underscore pop, which is also going to be a miss your questions and you can also always drop us a note. I see. Why am I on Slate.com?
Daisy Rosario: I see why. Maya’s produced by Daniel Schrader and Rachel Hampton. I’m Daisy Rosario, the senior supervising producer. And Alicia montgomery is Slate’s VP of Audio. See you online or not. But it is also not your jobs. Not your jobs. It’s not your.
Rachel Hampton, Lila Carillo, Nadira Goffe: Money. My jobs, Mother. I know.
