#Serial season 1 serial

Even apart from that, it isn't clear that the format matters in the way Kang asserts.

To my ear, the show's drama is only tangentially related to Koenig's obsessions. The pretense of objectivity is stripped away: Koenig emerges as the subject as the show’s drama revolves not so much around the crime, but rather, her obsessions with it.'

#Serial season 1 serial

But Serial is an experiment in two old forms: the weekly radio crime show, and the confessional true-crime narrative, wherein the journalist plays the role of the protagonist. If Serial were a newspaper story or even a traditional magazine feature, the identities of all three could exist alone as facts the reader could decide how much weight to place upon them. 'Sarah Koenig, the journalist telling their story, is white,' Kang writes. In Serial, the victim, Hae, is a Korean-American daughter of immigrants, while the man convicted of killing her, Adnan, is the son of Muslim immigrants from Pakistan. In doing so, I've found much of his writing on race in America to offer uncommon nuance and insight. After reading ' The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain is Always the High,' which I selected as one of the best pieces written in 2011, I felt sure I wanted to read everything he ever published. I also have a high opinion of The Awl's cultural analysis, and hold Kang in even higher esteem. But I concluded that the nontrivial chance of a wrongful conviction made renewed inquiry a moral imperative (if not for this podcast then for someone).ĭespite all that, I kept an open mind when I saw Jay Caspian Kang's article in The Awl, '' Serial' and White Reporter Privilege.' In part, this is because 'white-reporter privilege' sounds like just the sort of thing I might not discern. I did reflect on the ethical implications of publicly reinvestigating a murder case in a way that would likely force the family of the victim to relive it. And I detected nothing objectionable about the podcast with respect to white privilege, race, or ethnicity. Avid listeners couldn't help learning civically valuable details about the criminal-justice system.

As a longtime fan of This American Life and especially of Koenig's past work, I went into Serial with high expectations. Should more journalism like Serial receive funding or enjoy the moral and financial support of podcast listeners in the future, or is there something 'problematic,' cringeworthy, or even racist about this kind of journalism? The stigma attached to those characterizations could cause producers, editors, or reporters to shy away from similar projects, whether for better or worse. The second reason to address these critiques is that the show's reception among those invested in social justice will help determine whether other experiments like it are attempted. As often as not, there is at least something to be learned from the critic. The best course is to reflect on the critique with as open a mind as possible. So the charge, 'You got that country wrong,' or 'you misjudged that church,' or 'you don't understand how such companies work,' or 'that's not how it is in that political faction,' or 'you fell into stereotypes when writing about that ethnic community' should never be dismissed. Mistakes happen often and can be difficult for the reporter or audience to discern.

Journalism requires its practitioners to delve into unfamiliar subjects, communities, and subcultures.

They're worth addressing for two reasons.