Serial - the podcast *spoilers*

Brio2 just compared me to a 9/11 truther. Yeah, it's definitely me who has an atitude problem.

If you think every comment on this thread is about you, you may have an attitude problem.

I was referencing man alive's earlier comment:

Admittedly, not as clear-cut, and I don't think you have to be crazy on the level of a 9/11 truther to have doubts here, but I see a parallel inasmuch as people keep poking all these "holes" in the lead theory of what happened, but every alternative theory is far more ridiculous and fuller of holes.

Oh, come on. I spend the day before presenting alternative theories, then you write about alternative theories before saying that people who do that sound like 9/11 truthers. If you're not accusing me, at least put a little 'I don't mean on this thread'.

And if you're really just meaning '9/11 truther' because of a technical way about how the theories are flawed the same way, well then explain the flaws, instead of just making a comparison to a group, who for some reason always say the jews did it. Goodwins law and all that.

It's a stupid and offensive comparison no matter what.

Frederik, I'm not at all interested in discussing you as a human being or getting bossed around by you as to what I should explain or address in the posts I make here. I'm done here today, and will stay off this thread whenever you're on it. Cheers.

It's a stupid and offensive comparison no matter what.

― Frederik B, Friday, January 9, 2015 11:09 AM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree, which is why I tried to hedge as much as I could about even making the comparison, which maybe I still shouldn't have made. And I wasn't necessarily thinking of the people who say "Jews Did 9/11" just the people who are always "raising questions." But I don't mean to suggest you're anything akin to a 9/11 truther.

So the Intercept didn't bother to publish the second half of that interview

x-post: Thanks.

xp Are they specifically not going to or they just haven't yet?

Would be nice to also see an interview with one of the detectives, but that's probably too much to ask, as is expecting to really get anything out of any of these 15-years-later interviews where everyone has an interest in bolstering their own story.

idk. The article that dropped on Wed. said part 2 would be out "tomorrow"

looking at NVC's twitter it looks like they're delaying to answer SK's complaints about part one.

Yes that appears to be hold up. To be honest I don't see how they could verify that Urick WASN'T contacted (that Serial tried to I guess could be verified).

i don't think SK et al had any idea how much serial would blow up. i didn't start listening till 8 eps had already aired, bc on the surface the story just didn't sound that interesting or sensational or sordid - jealous teen strangles ex-gf and goes to jail. but when i did listen, i was immediately hooked, because the style - more than the actual content - was so engaging. i think SK has learned a lot from the mistakes she made during this first season.

She said something in the Fresh Air interview about how she just didn't foresee the way Serial would "collide with the internet" or something (all the reddit sleuthing and such).

Like I said above, she sounded genuinely rattled by the response, like she had actually lost sleep over the monster she had unleashed.

She even sounded annoyed by the SNL skit, which about the only positive thing to come out of this

But he would still have to walk or get picked up from the Park & Ride

― man alive, Thursday, January 8, 2015 6:24 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

And there's time enough for that, when you're no longer dealing with track practice.

― Frederik B, Thursday, January 8, 2015 6:30 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Alright, sincerely apologize for going back into this, but I just want to correct what I said, I mean the site where Hae's car was found, not the Park & Ride, which I think is a little further from stuff than the Park & Ride, though not hugely so. Probably at least an hour walk from anything significant. Remember he also presumably has to ditch the shovels and Hae's things somewhere, which means he'd be carrying those on his walk. Again, truly sorry for continuing to discuss these points at all but I can't seem to let go.

I mean, IDK, I guess he could drive from Leakin Park, stop somewhere on the way to ditch the shovels, ditch the car, then walk an hour to wherever he went next (don't remember what the accounts point to). Not impossible.

He, it's ok with me, it's everyone else who is weirded out. Just, nobody compare me to anything or anything for answering when asked. There are a few calls to Jenn at the time, from around where Hae's car is parked, and Jay and Jenn agrees that he picked her up at a mall (sorta, Jay once says he paged her from a mall, but then Adnan drove him home, and she picked him up from there). So he walked to a mall, and threw stuff out, then got picked up. Now, they then both say that they drove to Stephanies, but Stephanie denies that, so they are lying about something there.

On the missing second part from the Intercept: Serial responded to the allegations. They also allege that Urick claims he wasn't authorized to speak on this case by he Baltimore City State's Attorney office, since he no longer works there. If that is true, if he isn't authorized to speak - which should be quite easy to check independently - then we'll probably never get the second part.

You'll still get the second part. He already gave the interview. Glenn Greenwald is partly responsible for disseminating the Snowden nsa data they're not going to bat an eye at violating some stupid Baltimore municipal guideline.

Well, sure, but the point of the Snowden data wasn't attacking someone else for not following journalistic guidelines.

i need a podcast to walk me through this thread

It sounded like Greenwald was an Adnan-innocenter a couple weeks ago. Now NVC's piece is under extra editorial scrutiny. It's almost like First Look isn't the rock steady media operation we've come to know it as.

I could see the piece being delayed as they return to Urich for further comment but they aren't going to let Urich's "authority" to speak based on whatever guideline determine if it gets published.

Esp. since pt 1 is already out there.

Pretty interesting that the state city need the Lee family's permission to talk publicly about the case? Is that normally true? Feels like a lot of prosecutors are pretty vocal about their trials....

Sounds like they meant "out of respect for the Lee family" rather than that they were barredegaly from comment

Hard to tell. "Had not received permission... to speak on the record" sounds like it could be policy or courtesy.

If latter hard to figure how after already having case completely dredged up anyone speaking to anyone could really make it worse for Lee's family.

But I do understand impulse to try to be respectful.

Looks like they've added a clarification re: the defense disclosure and Serial's attempt to contact Urick.

A mess. The introduction about the disclosure now reads: Early on in the case, Urick said, the defense sent a disclosure to the state saying it had more than 80 witnesses who would testify about Adnan’s whereabouts on the day he allegedly killed Hae and buried her body. But when the defense found out that the cellphone records showed that Adnan was nowhere near the mosque, it killed that alibi and those witnesses were never called to testify at the trial, according to Urick. That is not what Urick says - they haven't 'corrected' his interview. And it doesn't fix the problem. Now they just misrepresent how Urick is misprepresenting the disclosure. Honestly, I fail to see how that makes it better.

FWIW, if you actually read the disclosure, it just sounds like the witnesses were going to testify that they would likely have noticed if he were missing, not that they definitely saw him. So it's not very strong evidence, regardless of whether it's "fabricated" or not.

And that's a pretty good explanation in itself for why the evidence was never presented -- just not that strong.

They added a note to the interview itself. How would they correct his interview?

I also completely understand why it was withdrawn (though didn't Adnans track-coach testify that he would have noticed if Adnan wasn't there?) The problem is, they are presenting it as fabricated to show that the case was strong and the defence was weak. And the disclosure still doesn't back that up.

It's not about 'correcting' the interview. They should remove the part from the top, because it doesn't hold up, still doesn't. And then, you know, they could add a note in the interview about his claim being blatantly untrue, but they would never do that.

I think the claim is pretty factual, but I've pretty much learned to agree to disagree with you on this subject.

But it's just weird. Like, the note says: [Ed. note: We have corrected this in the introduction] Why have they corrected it? Have they spoken to him, and he explained what he meant? Did they mistranscribe? He said something that wasn't true, they presented it, and they repeated it. Now they still present his untrue claim, but then they change it into something else when they repeat it.

And Alex, you're not just disagreeing with me, you're also disagreeing with TheIntercept on this. And 'pretty factual' isn't enough here. It's either factual, or it's not. Sure, Urick might misremember. But when you're repeating something in an introduction, 'pretty factual' isn't enough.

Urick says a lot of 'pretty factual' things in this interview, as did Jay in his. As does Adnan and Rubia Chaudry constantly. The problem is, the journalists repeated it without commenting on it's innacurracy.

isn't the correction that not all 80 witnesses were going to testify to exactly the same thing--seeing Adnan at the mosque--but some were?

it's more of an exaggeration in that case, or just blurring the lines between 80 scuttled witnesses and some witnesses prepared to lie

but I haven't been sifting through the reddit bile pits

Just to be clear the alibi in disclosure is clearly fabricated because Adnan by his own account did not actually do the things it says he did in the disclosure (he did not attend school the entire day, he did not go straight home, etc). So to have witness either testify to him doing those things OR must have done those things because they would have noticed otherwise is a fabrication.

The original intro to the Intercept was an overstatement (as is Urick's in the interview) which is why they felt the need to issue a frankly pretty tepid correction. I don't find the "error"/"lie" whatever you are calling it terribly compelling.

Well we're really splitting hairs either way imo, but testifying that you "would have noticed otherwise" is a belief, so it's not necessarily a "fabrication" just because it's provably false.

But that's also why it's not very probative evidence in most situations. "Yeah I would have noticed if he wasn't there." Ok maybe if it was your husband, your son, your teacher, but not one of a big crowd of people you regularly see at a mosque.

Good points.

The alibi is clearly untrue (of course it's 'fabricated', in that Adnan says he can't remember what he did, so it's reconstructed), but Urick talks about 'fabricated evidence'. And none of the witnesses were going to testify to any of the untrue things, just what his 'regular attendence' was. None of the untrue things conflict with his 'regular attendence'.

It's really such an irrelevant point that the prosecutor might be mischaracterizing a hypothetical bit of evidence 15 years later

Deciding not to put on a bunch of witnesses who can't say that they remember seeing Adnan at the mosque for sure is proof that CG was maybe not that bad of a lawyer

As I've stated right above, I'm arguing that the problem is TheIntercept uses this mischaracterizing to puff up their own argument that the case wasn't weak at all. And now, on finding out the argument doesn't hold, they've 'corrected' the argument for Urick, instead of removing it.