SP Origins Long Form: Serial’s Rightful Place in the Modern Infotainment Spectrum

In light of the news Serial will be adapted into a scripted television show by Fox, the podcast’s role in the broader media spectrum is worth some scrutiny. Sarah Koenig has repeatedly claimed Serial is Journalism, and she often goes farther to assert the high journalistic standards she exercised in the production. With perhaps Jim Lehrer’s Newshour at one extreme of the infotainment spectrum and MTV’s Jackass at the other, Koenig herself places Serial quite near the Newshour. The fawning approval of a media establishment enamored with Serial’s high ratings and her recently awarded Peabody talisman have warded off any attempt at a critical reevaluation of its rightful placement.

By any objective measure, however, Serial is NOT Journalism. Serial’s rightful place instead is as part of the modern entertainment trend where the Process of Making the Finished Product is produced as its own Finished Product. People used to listen to records of their favorite band, now people watch a singing competition show to see what lucky aspiring singer will be bestowed a record contract to make an album that no one will buy. Previously, the singer auditions were behind the curtain, conducted in guitarist’s garages, recording studios and empty soundstages.

In truth, much of Reality TV is of this form – an entertainer of some discipline taking us behind the curtain into their lives to see their process for creating their Art and to flaunt the various baubles their success has provided. The Kardashians routinely hang what could loosely be called their plot points around their next public appearance, their next photo shoot, or their next product endorsement – their Finished Products. In the process, the Art becomes themselves – they are their own Finished Product.

We see this trend in sports entertainment as well. HBO’s Hard Knocks takes us behind the scenes of the Sunday gridiron action into the lives of the players, coaches and administrators to witness the everyday humdrum of the building of a Football Team. We see players in their homes sprawled on their living room shag carpets tossing their gleeful toddlers in the air, we see players on an off August dog day going to visit NASA, we see a large group of coaches meeting as corporate middle managers discussing the daily performance of their respective position player product groupings. The football team is no longer the Finished Product. The Making of The Football Team is.

Serial functions in this way, too. In traditional investigative journalism, a reporter with the idea of a story to explore the Adnan Syed case would read primary documents and interview sources behind the scenes. Conflicting accounts would be reconciled through deeper research wherever possible. Most claims which could not be verified would not survive the editorial process, and surviving unconfirmed claims would be presented with the appropriate disclaimers. A magazine article, or a television segment, or possibly even its own entire show or book would be the journalistic Finished Product, in effect the Determined Truth With Most Things Known. The process would never see the light of day.

Serial instead adopted the entertainment model of hitting the record button as soon as the idea for the story was born. As an entertainment product, this proved tremendously appealing - Sarah Koenig doing her best Nancy Drew and amplification given to her cotton candy interior monologue.

In some instances, the consequences of the presentation of this new form as journalism are limited, as in the existence or nonexistence of the Best Buy payphone. In Traditional Journalism, its existence would have been established and not ever mentioned because of the ultimately mundane nature of the fact. A dead-end for the traditional reporter telling a story, in Serial it provided at least a solid half hour of suspenseful programming over multiple episodes!

But consider the information Sarah presents to frame the entire story in the inaugural episode:

• The protagonists had to recall events only 6 weeks later

• Adnan was a “golden child”, as told by Rabia

• Rabia is mostly credible

• Jay was a dubious witness with a shifting story that “was the State’s entire case against Adnan”

• The cell records showed Hae was dead by 2:36pm

• Asia Mclain was a credible alibi witness who could account for Adnan’s whereabouts when the crime took place

• CG was later disbarred

• CG “fucked up” by not contacting Asia

• Adnan would have to be a psychopath to actually be guilty

None of these prejudicial assertions proved to be true. The entire narrative arc of Sarah’s investigation and Serial itself was born of false information, because Sarah began her own investigation of the case with false information. The consequence is determined by the form. Jay was imbued with more reason to be doubted and Adnan more reason to be believed than the facts actually merited.
The only facts which survive further scrutiny are the barest of bones –Hae and Adnan’s dating history, Hae’s death, Adnan’s conviction - that’s it. Only 1 minute of tape from Serial’s entire first episode would survive in a traditional journalistic form. That’s tremendously irresponsible for a self-acclaimed act of Journalism.

Sarah does mitigate or contradict some of the episode one misinformation in later episodes, giving Serial as a Work of Art an almost Rashomon-like quality of subjective and evolving truth. With a twist of the Serial kaleidoscope dial, we subsequently learn Hae was seen alive at or near 3pm at school, which changes our valuation of Asia, we learn Adnan was not a golden child, we learn there were other witnesses and corroborating evidence that validate Jay.

But many of the original false claims endured, as has the broader narrative established by the false episode 1 framing. Most of these dubious claims should have been replaced over the course of a more thorough investigation –among them when Adnan was asked to recall January 13, a spotlight on the void of truth in virtually all of Rabia’s claims, and particularly All Things Asia.

The Asia narrative offered by Koenig is cast into serious doubt by several moments in the PCR hearing testimony alone. Adnan’s mother offers a very different account of the family’s interaction with Asia. Rabia testifies CG looked into Asia and it didn’t pan out. Adnan claims to have given Asia’s letters to CG immediately, though CG was not even his lawyer at the purported time of Asia’s writing.

Despite the abundance of information revealed in later episodes of Serial as well as available source materials like the PCR testimony, the main lasting consequence of Serial as The Process of Doing Journalism has been the emergence of a false false-conviction narrative. This enduring narrative has proven to be very fertile soil. Many casual Serial listeners still accept Serial as the Established Truth, which has enabled an entire exoneration movement to grow, in turn bearing the fruit of multiple other false conviction themed podcasts and blogs, a twitter public relations campaign, and letter-writing campaigns to Maryland’s State Attorney and Governor requesting clemency or other relief.

The ultimate real-world impact of all this is unclear. Alarmingly, the Court of Special Appeals appeared to punt when faced with the opportunity to shut down Syed’s attempts to re-litigate his conviction. Apparently emboldened by the perceived public support momentum, Adnan’s current lawyer subsequently has made unusual and potentially improper motions and brief submissions to the court invoking “the interests of justice”. In an ironic twist, the false conviction narrative born of Serial could result in a false exoneration.

The story of Hae Min Lee’s murder at the hands of Adnan Syed was in truth a “run of the mill” domestic violence murder. Serial didn’t tell it. There are multiple fascinating potential story lines in this entire saga - the role of the media in shaping public opinion and the flexibility of the judiciary and administration of the law in the face of public pressure, the courage of a few kids who testified against a peer in a murder trial instead of remaining silent in No Snitch Baltimore, a classic true crime procedural following the detectives pursuit of Hae’s killer among them. Maybe someday an enterprising investigative journalist will write some of these stories. Serial didn’t tell them, either.

In the meantime, Serial has only now found its Finished Product in its partnership with Fox. Tellingly, it is a fictional show.