Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

From that hate piece by Diana Moscovitz:

All this show did was make a bunch of sheltered, oblivious, middle-class Americans feel very smart about themselves. Out here, stuck in real life with the rest of us, it was just another day in the courthouse.

What an elitist, condescending piece of shit. There's a reason why Sarah Koenig has a massively successful and groundbreaking podcast and Ms. Moscovitz is writing worthless stories on mediocre websites. Fuck you, Diana Moscovitz.

I thought Moscovitz went overboard, for sure, and I didn't agree with a lot of her "well the rest of us ALREADY KNOW THAT" griping. But I did agree that it was frustrating to listen to Sarah Koenig's Inspector Clouseau routine when someone with a little more training and experience in crime reporting etc. could have probably cut through a lot of the bullshit more easily (but then probably not had enough material for 12 episodes).

And ultimately I was left with the same feeling of "why are you digging all this up again?" Like a whole new generation of people now wonder if some dude who put this to rest over ten years ago might actually be a murderer. If there's a basis to think so, and it might mean someone innocent gets out of jail, then by all means investigate, but broadcasting your investigation to the world before you know if there's even an answer seems morally questionable to me. I feel like people so concerned with the possibility that there might be an innocent matter in jail are forgetting that there's another potentially innocent man at stake.

^ yes. it would be ok to have fewer episodes though. like she really needed to have a lawyer or crime reporter with her on the whole thing, not just do a couple episodes interviewing those people. the professional might have told her to choose another case though. xp

not to say she is not any kind of professional

She is a professional in the sense that she verifies her facts and generally reports only things that can be backed up. She's a good reporter in the wider sense. She however had little knowledge, apparently, of police work, the legal system, and the huge body of literature on what kinds of evidence are or are not reliable. I told a friend that it reminded me at times of a person with no English lit background reading a 16th century poem and feeling around for what it might mean based on modern understandings of word definitions, then throwing his hands up and saying "Well, we'll never know what the poet meant by these words, he's dead," meanwhile being totally unaware of all the scholarship on the poem, the availability of tools like the OED, etc. Not a perfect analogy, but same problem of trying to reinvent the wheel.

plus a lot of times she got advice from a professional and then ignored it!

I also felt she was just not that great at weighing facts against each other, or perhaps just unwilling to

The weirdest moment in the entire series was when she dismissed that "I'm going to kill..." note with a crack about it sounding like something out of a dime store mystery. Ok

i kinda changed my mind abt her when she dropped a "that was the money shot" about a piece of evidence in an early episode

ha, i'd forgotten that. did she not know what it means? or was she trying to be edgy? either way it's a clunker.

the impressions were pretty spot-on on the SNL sketch. Especially the Adnan voice.

Santa didn't say "right" enough. Otherwise it was great.

"Christmas magic"

Oh ok so I guess the deal was officially that cooperation = rec of five years with all but two suspended, but then at Jay's sentencing the prosecutor made an *additional* rec of suspending the other two years as well because of remorse:
http://www.reddit.com/r/serialpodcast/comments/2ldjx7/where_is_jay_now_did_adnan_kill_jay_in_jail_when/

So it is possible that the prosecutor had in fact verbally promised Jay no jail time, but it wasn't in the actual plea agreement. Ulrich might have said something like "Oh and by the way, if this goes well we might even be able to give you a better recommendation than is in the plea agreement." Even if so, I wouldn't say that taints things to the point of calling the trial a "travesty" -- all we know is that one juror was influenced by the fact that she thought Jay was serving time. We also know that's not the only thing that made her credible to him.

― man alive, 21. december 2014 19:28 (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

That is again crazy to me, that that is ok. I mean, it's very possible that Mr Urich might simply have been deeply moved by Jay's remorse, and thought he'd suffered enough or something, but it's impossible to know. It would always be impossible to know. Does anyone know if this happens often?

I think the state is generally favorably disposed towards it's witnesses. I have no idea how frequently someone who was charged with something like being an accessory to first degree murder serves no time due to their cooperation. I'd imagine it's not completely uncommon.

Well, that is not really what I asked. How often does it happen with a plea deal, that after the trial, the prosecution will then argue for even less punishment? Because that seems like a practice that would be very easy to abuse.

I'm willing to bet that if Adnan had not been convicted Jay would have served those two years

That seems like a good bet. It's definitely still incentive for Jay to "do his best" at trial.

Although I think the entire plea is usually conditional on full cooperation so maybe it's more like a "results bonus" as PK is saying.

Either way I think it's pretty clear the prosecution in this case did not really give a shit about Jay serving any time for his part in the crime and was actively attempting to make sure he served as little as possible. I'd say how that prosecution went about doing was pretty unusual even if the actual result is again probably pretty common.

i don't know statistically how often but it seems a little odd to me for the prosecutor to directly ask for the rest to be suspended. is there a transcript of that somewhere? however, the last few words of the written agreement are that the agreement is a cap. so it doesn't violate the agreement in any way and the defense could have anticipated that and cross-examined jay on that. like, you might get five years if the state is not satisfied with your testimony, but you could end up getting probation out of this if you cooperate. it's implied in the writing of it that that's possible.

For what it's worth, in my inability to let go of this completely, I started reading Rabia's blog and it has a lot of detail that SK doesn't get to. Of course, Rabia is even more biased in favor of Adnan than SK is and tends to draw pretty much every inference in Adnan's favor, but she raises some interesting points that I don't remember being raised on Serial.

I heard an AV Club podcast interview with Rabia and she said something like "I brought this case to SK hoping that she would uncover a piece of evidence that would free Adnan. But she wasn't equipped to do that." I can see bringing the case to a TAL producer because you'd like it publicized in the hopes that someone might come forward when new info, but to actually think that SK, not even a crime journalist, was going to break the case open herself? Of course, that assumes there is a piece of Adnan-clearing evidence lying around to be found.

meanwhile, after listening to the whole damn thing, my reservations about this are not in the details of what happened in the case, it's the concept itself

from the website

Serial joins the storytelling revolution all around us, in TV, radio, and film. Preparing the way have been TV shows like St. Elsewhere and The Sopranos, films such as The Usual Suspects and Memento, and the recent surge in anthology TV series such as Fargo and American Horror Story. And, of course, there's This American Life itself. All show that such storytelling works, and, more important, that audiences are ready, yea starving, for it.

Maybe so, but isn't it kinda unethical to pilfer real people's real lives in order to satisfy this hunger for storytelling? that's pretty gross.

When the idea first arose, we said, 'But didn't Dickens do this? Is this even new? Why hasn't somebody done this?' "
No, Dickens used fictional characters.
Why hasn't someone done this with real people? Because it's unethical?

I find it hard to believe that weekly amateur sleuthing is what the world is waiting for. Even so, I listened to the whole thing. I liked when Adnan held her to task for not knowing him very well and then pressed her at the end for her conclusion.

This is bugging me: Adnan was married and divorced in prison. Never mentioned on Serial.

Not relevant to the case. But then neither was his fucking lunch club.

I think it was important for Serial that we think of Adnan as a 17-year-old kid. That's how he talks. That's how his story becomes even close to being plausible - if you hear it from a stoned confused scared kid.

Letting him be an adult fucks with his likeability.

So she just doesn't do it. She ducks for him.

Yeah, I know I can't read her mind. I don't know exactly why she made the choice to leave that out. But I think I'm right about the effects of that decision on the listener. And she would know that perfectly well too.

If she's making those kinds of choices - and this is just one example - it feels as though she's just an unreliable narrator.

La Lechera raises an interesting point - Adnan actually speaks up for the listener a couple of times: "Don't tell me about what a nice guy Adnan is." "So you really don't have an ending for this, do you?"

This show made me really angry in a way I can't quite explain. I just wrote an angry e-mail to the show. I can't get it out of my head.

I go back and forth, but the more I read up on it the worse I feel about it.

You might even say Irrationally Angry

i can't get over the elevation of nosy neighbor amateur sleuthing to some kind of storytelling art
i wasn't surprised that hae's family didn't want to talk with her. why would they?! what would be the point? (and that's what i kept asking myself -- what is the point of this? if it's "entertainment", that's unethical; if it's "finding answers", you failed.)
it seems dishonest and unethical to me, after a lot of thinking

Wow, you guys really want people to rot in jail, no matter how weak their cases are, huh?

wow
no i don't

Wow, you guys really want people to rot in jail, no matter how weak their cases are, huh?

― Frederik B, Monday, December 22, 2014 10:52 AM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Remind me what this show did to get anyone a shot at getting out of jail?

You maybe need to take a break from this thread Fred. You're taking this all a little personal.

also there are professionals who dedicate their lives to handling these cases and SK briefly talked with one of them http://www.innocenceproject.org/
that was a really mean-spirited thing to say

As I said above, I'm all for innocent project-type groups looking at the case again, as many times as they want. That could have been done just as easily without a, frankly, dumb show.

*innocence project

Jesus, Frederik. Enough already.

in fairness - the Innocence Project didn't look at the case without Serial prompting them to do so, and they say Serial producers did uncover useful information for a possible appeal: http://time.com/3639655/serial-innocence-project-deirdre-enright/

(but i find the serial killer scenario as laid out by Deirdre "Big Picture" Enright really hard to believe, at least based on how it's been laid out so far)

And, fuck, sorry but this is bugging me - for someone who consistently complains about having his points misunderstood and misrepresented to equate people saying "I have problems with the way this story was told" to people saying they "really want people to rot in jail, no matter how weak their cases are" is some bullshit.

Well this is a guy who thinks someone adding a C to his name is some kind of savage American insult

In Denmark they would kill for that insult and the murderer only get 14 years.

but the only witness was a J

I think Innocence Projects are great, but Deidre frankly sounds a little loopy to me in the show (and also in the Time interview).

Big picture, Alex, big picture.

Well, guys, sorry I upset you. Didn't mean to, didn't think it would. My mistake.

BUT: What are you guys mad at Serial about? Note, I didn't say Adnan was innocent, I said his case was weak. And the podcast did a hell of a lot to show the weaknesses of his case, uncovered a possible alibi nobody bothered to follow up on, then undermined that revelation by showing that the timeline of the case was complete bullshit anyway, so the alibi might not have mattered. Uncovered that at least one juror based her verdict partly on a 'misunderstanding' of the witness' plea deal. Broadcast the anti-muslim bigotry the prosecution every now and then lowered itself to. So much bullshit to shore up a weak case.

And that is the final conclusion to the podcast: We don't know whether Adnan was guilty or innocent, but he should def never have been convicted with this evidence. That is an INCREDIBLY important point, something completely worth every stupid storytelling choice the producers did. Not 'innocence' project, but 'weak case' project. And that point was broadcast to millions of listeners, hopefully someone of whom got it, even if you guys didn't. That is a point that points to systemic failure, how the justice system is actually pretty crappy at establishing truth in any case, and perhaps realizing that might make more people less quick to demand tough automatic sentencing. That is a point something like Thin Blue Line failed to make, because it was actually pretty obvious that the truth could have been found if the system hadn't been completely incompetent.

And I'm sorry, but you guys - at least some of you guys, and nobody contradicted that sentiment - are being really, really angry at this show, even though it forcefully broadcasted that point to millions of listeners, because of 'the way this story was told'. Writing angry letters to the show; saying it's 'unethical'. Thinking storytelling details are more important than points about people with weak cases rotting in jail. It was put meanly, but sorry, it's not 'bullshit'.

This show was valuable. Really valuable. And I do feel sorry for the family of Hae, but I put the blame completely on the US justice system, which keeps cases like these alive through imposing life sentences on weak cases, ensuring the defendants will always want to keep the cases alive.

There's a guy with a really weak case rotting in jail, for 15 years so far. The rest is unimportant. Not worth being angry about.

Also, lol at saying I take this 'too personal', then fifty minutes later making fun of me, as a person. Bullshit move.

'How weird that you take this completely unpersonal thing personal. That must be because there is something wrong with you, as a person!'

yeah good post frederik imo. I do appreciate that the "seems dishonest/unethical" criticisms of this were reached after a lot of thought, but that just doesn't match my take on it in any way

i tried to express my reaction to this as level-headedly as i could -- it struck me because it reminded me of another "i'm gonna try on this professional hat for a while and record it" tv show: the one where tony danza teaches high school english.
not surprisingly, the show did not turn out as tony danza expected it to. he was not fulfilled by his year of hard work (he admitted it was hard work ad infinitum) and he wound up disappointed with a class full of students who, at best, learned nothing and at worst, were prevented from learning by his direct interactions with them. i mean, those stakes are high too.

if i find it unethical, it's because i know there are problems with the system that botches investigations; i also know from these two examples that it's not going to be solved by two people filming their personal journeys through this experience. so that's why it seems unethical to me. i respect the right of others to feel differently.

i also expect that my reaction is given the benefit of the doubt and that i am not someone who wants people "to rot in jail." that's inflammatory language, and i have not been inflammatory itt and i would appreciate if we kept this convo cool. thank you.