Serial: a new kind of journalism

Shortly before Thanksgiving, my daughter told me about Serial, a podcast exploring a nonfiction story over multiple episodes (thus the name). It’s a spinoff of the radio program This American Life. First released last October, the episodes ran weekly for 12 weeks. The final episode was released on Dec. 18.

In early December, I went online and listened to the podcasts, and I was hooked. I understood why it ranked number one on iTunes for several weeks.

Sarah Koenig, who created and hosts the series, investigates the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, an 18-year-old student at Woodlawn High School in Baltimore. Lee’s ex-boyfriend, Adnan Musud Syed, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. After a six-week trial, Syed was found guilty on Feb. 25, 2000, and given a life sentence, despite pleading his innocence.

Koenig’s journalism is not especially new. She does what other journalists do in newspaper articles or TV “newsmagazines” that explore a topic in detail in order to get at the truth.

But what makes Koenig’s reporting in Serial unique, besides the format, is her transparency. As Joyce Barnathan notes in “Why Serial Is Important for Journalism” (Columbia Journalism Review, cjr.org), Koenig shares her thoughts and views as she researches the story. She talks about her anxieties, her soul searching, as she ponders whether or not Syed is guilty.

This openness, writes Barnathan, “adds tremendous credibility to our field.” We identify with Koenig because she’s expressing what we also feel.

The podcasts move us emotionally. At times we believe, or want to believe, that Syed is innocent. At other times we wonder if he’s playing us.

Koenig not only tells a gripping story, however. She raises interesting questions that connect to our lives and help us understand how complex situations are. For example, she asks people, “Do you remember the details of a day six weeks ago?”

Serial also teaches us about how journalists or lawyers or detectives investigate a murder. And we learn about the criminal justice system, how fickle it can seem. We learn how imprecise people’s memories are, how events get interpreted in multiple ways.

When we watch a fictional murder investigation on TV, it usually is tied up neatly in an hour. In real life, it doesn’t work that way.

Koenig works hard to find people more than a decade later who were involved in the case, people who knew Syed or Lee. She also interviews experts in various fields.

Serial is more than entertaining and educational. It has uncovered evidence that the prosecution and the defense in this case failed to produce. People connected to the case have contacted Koenig and provided their perspectives.

Before the final episode aired, some criticized it for being produced if it wasn’t going to reach a clear conclusion about Syed’s innocence or guilt. But this is not a Dickens novel with a clear, melodramatic ending.

As a result of the podcast, however, there is some movement toward possibly solving the murder. The UVA Innocence Project is poised to ask a court to test an old physical evidence recovery kit that was used on Lee’s body to test for possible sexual assault in 1999 but was never tested for DNA. This could provide evidence showing Syed’s guilt or innocence, but the courts need to allow it.

 Like life, the story is ongoing. Meanwhile, journalists can draw lessons from Serial about reporting with transparency.  

Complex humanity

Yesterday I went to see Bernie, the new film by Richard Linklater, who is one of my favorite directors. It's a different kind of film, hard to describe.

It's based on a true story set in the small, east Texas town of Carthage, where Bernie Tiede (Jack Black), a mortician who is gay, sings in the local Methodist church and gives caring attention to older widows, befriends Marjorie Nugent (Shirley McClaine), an 81-year-old widow who is also a millionaire. After several years of accompanying her on various trips to far-flung places and serving her every whim, he snaps after too much nagging and put-downs and shoots her. Being a dedicated mortician, he stores her body in a freezer in her garage rather than disposing of it. He then carries on with his life, donating much of the money he gets from her account and making excuses for her absence.
Eventually the local district attorney (Matthew McConaughey) investigates and finds the body. Bernie confesses his crime, saying it was like someone else doing it. Clearly, in the film's interpretation at least, it was not premeditated. Nevertheless, a jury from another town convicts him of first-degree murder, and he's sent to prison for life.
Black gives a good performance and shows off his singing ability. But what makes the film work and provides the laugh-out-loud humor are the interviews with townsfolk in Carthage who by turns adore and admire Bernie. They overlook his homosexuality, more impressed with how nice he was to everyone. The townspeople's heavy accents and colorful language, such as "that dog don't hunt" or "he only shot her with four bullets, not five," are funny but also endearing.
Although many may look down on these people, the film reveals a community that is quite complex, able to include a variety of people and absorb a variety of emotions. These people don't hold onto stereotypical prejudices. Many of them embrace a gay man who murdered an old woman and believe he should be exonerated.
Granted, much of the film feels over-the-top. It's that rare film that doesn't feel realistic but is actually based on facts. One more evidence that truth is often stranger than fiction.
I understand that some Carthage citizens, including the district attorney, and relatives of Ms. Nugent, disagree with the film's interpretation of events. It's not a documentary, more a mockumentary. But it's not quite that either. Is it a dark comedy? Yes and no.
It's one more fine film by Linklater, who has also made Dazed and Confused, Waking Life and the outstanding Before Sunrise and Before Sunset.
If you happen to go, be sure to stay through the credits. You get to see the real Bernie, conversing from prison with Jack Black.