"Serial": On-Demand Essay
Phoenix McCain-Novakowski
Molly Fenn
English ¾, Period 2
15th April 2020
Koenig’s Questionable “Serial” Podcast Structure
In this current day and age, podcasts are one of the many forms of entertainment that are growing in popularity. Accompanying them are crime shows or dramas, providing the audience with a thrill and a need to know more until the conclusion to the crime is reached. Sarah Koenig, an investigative journalist at This American Life, puts both attention-grabbing elements together in her podcast series, Serial. Serial is a nonfiction story that revolves around the investigation of a 1999 murder of a girl named Hae Min Lee. Koenig’s narration of Serial represents some people and ideas in a fair light, while others are represented in a more questionable manner. While Koenig does allow everyone involved a chance to tell their story as they remember it and gives the audience a detailed account of what has been done for the investigation, her tendency to insert her own opinions and structure the podcast in an unnecessarily dramatic way creates an unfair representation.
Koenig had begun this investigation with a lot of information and recollections to pick apart. She had been alerted to the case’s existence by a woman who believed that the accused was wrongly imprisoned, thus, he should be given another chance to prove his innocence. The person accused of murdering Hae Min Lee was a man named Adnan Syed, her ex-boyfriend. The state’s case against him provided little to no hard evidence of his involvement, all the prosecution had to go off of were the memories of a man named Jay. Despite Koenig being contacted by someone who wanted to prove Syed’s innocence, one of the first things she did was listen to Jay’s recorded recollections of the case. When she was finished, she didn’t immediately accuse Jay of lying or Adnan being the true murderer for sure. She stated: “So either it's Jay or it's Adnan. But someone is lying. And I really wanted to figure out who” (“Episode 1: The Alibi Transcript”, 2016). It wasn’t a conclusion, but a call to further investigate what had happened. There was more to learn if the truth was to be uncovered, and Koenig was open to receiving information from both the prosecution and defense to get to that truth.
Another thing that Koenig has been very inclusive about are the details of the whole investigation. As the podcast follows the evidence-searching to prove whether Syed is truly innocent or not, it also follows her journey of reporting the whole event. Everything that goes into the investigation of Lee’s murder is stated in her podcast, giving way to what truly goes into a murder investigation. Jane Kirtley, a Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, is a consultant that was contacted for assistance in analyzing Serial in an article written by Jessica Goldstein. She complimented that “serial allows listeners a tremendous amount of insight into the investigative process: how complicated it can be, how unruly, how involved, how tedious” (Goldstein). All the work was there. Every step that Koenig took and why she took that step was given a reason behind it to keep the audience informed about where the investigation was and where it was likely headed. It brought light to everything going on.
However, in addition to giving the audience insight into the investigative process, Koenig also provides her own input when confronting new individuals involved or new evidence that’s been found. At first glance, this doesn’t appear to be that damaging as it can’t be helped that people have opinions about what they learn about. When it comes to openly question someone’s honesty on a popular podcast that many people listen to, that’s where most of the damage lies. Edward Wasserman, the Dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and another consultant called in to analyze Serial, agreed. He stated that: “Gratuitous defamation is something that should be avoided. And it’s unavoidable when the reporter is thinking out loud en route to that conclusion.” (Goldstein). Publically calling someone out to be a liar without any hard evidence or grounding can harm their life outside of the investigation. Their reputation of who they are to the public may be tarnished, bringing forth unnecessary and unfair challenges to their future and families.
Lastly, Koenig’s structure of the podcast was more comparable to that of a crime drama series, where many decisions were made based on what seemed to create more entertainment for the audience. Kirtley has expressed concerns over this decision as well, as that type of strategy was fine for “a fiction writer or dramatist” (Goldstein), but not always for an investigative podcast for a case that involved real people. Hae Min Lee was a real person, who’s family does still exist and is being brought back to this nightmare because of Serial. A Reddit post from a man claiming to be Hae’s brother read: “To you listeners, it’s another murder mystery, crime drama, another episode of CSI… You don’t know what we went through. Especially to those who are demanding our family response and having a meetup… you guys are disgusting. Shame on you. I pray that you don’t have to go through what we went through and have your story blasted to 5mil listeners” (Goldstein). It can be acknowledged that family members of someone who is involved in a murder investigation lose their right to privacy automatically. It can’t be helped, as investigations require them to involved so that the perpetrator can be found. Yet, just because it cannot be helped does not make it fair to the family. Especially if the family wants to mourn in peace and move on.
While Koenig does allow everyone involved a chance to tell their story as they remember it and gives the audience a detailed account of what has been done for the investigation, her tendency to insert her own opinions and structure the podcast in an unnecessarily dramatic way creates an unfair representation. Everyone has taken the messages and information from Serial differently, depending on their involvement and what role they played in the case. While the structure of the weekly-installed podcast kept the audience well-informed, it also fictionalized the whole case to a certain extent. The structure and decisions that Koenig has made for Serial remains in a grey area in terms of whether the representation of people and ideas is fair.
Works Cited
Goldstein, Jessica M. "The Complicated Ethics Of ‘Serial,’ The Most Popular Podcast Of All Time". Archive.Thinkprogress.Org, 2014,
https://archive.thinkprogress.org/the-complicated-ethics-of-serial-the-most-popular-podcast-of-all-time-6f84043de9a9/. Accessed 14 Apr 2020.
"Episode 1: The Alibi Transcript". Google Docs, 2016, https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tf9zC1atDaClrBt2waYpMQP8UHB034FdxzvhajO
Fw2A/edit. Accessed 14 Apr 2020.