My New Favourite Podcast?

I really enjoyed this podcast, and I definitely think that I will continue to listen to it, so that I can find out where this story goes. I was already a fan of podcasts in general before listening to this specific one, so I am a bit biased. I really liked the style of story telling that Serial has gone with. It felt very natural to me, almost like I was sitting down with Sarah and she was personally explaining everything about this case to me.

I think that presenting investigative journalism as a podcast is a very interesting idea, that you could go a lot of ways with. It would be interesting to listen to this podcast as it was being released, as it would make the listeners feel like Sarah did, as she was making connections and coming to conclusions while investigating this case. It would also be very interesting to listen to a podcast that was being released and recorded every time the journalist found new information that was potentially relevant to the case.

I think that the victim’s family would probably be upset that Serial has become so popular. It is basically attempting to argue that Adnan is not guilty, which is likely not something that Hae’s family would like to be hearing about. However, it is bringing more awareness to Hae’s story, which could be something that her family wants, or something that they would like to completely ignore.

I generally prefer to read texts, because I find that I retain more of the information. I did, however, really enjoy listening to this specific podcast. I found it really interesting to be able to hear each specific person’s voice and how they intended their thoughts to be heard and interpreted. I think that with a subject like the one Serial focuses on, being able to hear the person’s tone of voice is incredibly important, and it greatly influenced my opinion of this case. There were some drawbacks as well. I found it frustrating that I couldn’t follow along to the text while listening, like you can with most TedTalks. It was also difficult to rewind to a specific point in the podcast, if I found myself wanting to listen to a part again to gain a better understanding of what was being discussed.

I personally think that the human memory is an extremely unreliable source, especially when it comes to court cases like the one in Serial. As someone who can barely remember what she ate for dinner two days ago, I don’t think that I should be trusted to recall what I did on any given day in court. This causes me to wonder how the rest of this podcast will unfold. There are a few different retellings of the same day floating around this case, but how do we know which one is the most credible without any physical proof?

Let me know what you thought of the podcast in the comments!