10 ms·

Serial was blowout success, but flawed in many ways. For me, chief amongst these is not updating the podcast with new (and potentially exculpatory) information

by robga 4y ago

Serial was blowout success, but flawed in many ways. For me, chief amongst these is not updating the podcast with new (and potentially exculpatory) information as it came to light over the years. What really progressed the case was the Undisclosed podcast [0]. Rabia Chaudry, a childhood friend of Adnan and an attorney, first took Adnan's story to Sarah Koenig, who documented it in the Serial podcast. But in Undisclosed, Rabia and her colleagues Colin Miller and Susan Simpson dissected the case with scalpel, found new evidence, and ultimately set the groundwork for today's result. Undisclosed stuck with it, and have covered other similar cases. Their twitter [1] says they've had 400m+ downloads, which is more than Serial, albeit over many series. If you liked Serial, or even if you didn't but do like True Crime, go check out Undisclosed. If long podcasts are not your thing, HBO's The Case Against Adnan Syed [2] is quite information rich across just 4 episodes. [0] https://undisclosed-podcast.com/episodes/season-1/ https://undisclosed-podcast.com/episodes/season-1/ [1] https://twitter.com/Undisclosedpod https://twitter.com/Undisclosedpod [2] https://www.hbo.com/the-case-against-adnan-syed https://www.hbo.com/the-case-against-adnan-syed

Wowfunhappy 4y ago
I tried a bit of Undisclosed but it was... too much for me. In Serial, I was able to keep all the details of the case straight in my head, but Undisclosed went too far. That said, their objective wasn't to entertain and I respect that.
orblivion 4y ago
Wow, lucky kid that his case got this much attention. It can't be the only ambiguous case out there.
- BurningFrog 4y ago
  There are many thousands more.
- skinnymuch 4y ago
  He's a 41 year old man now.
jmkd 4y ago
Would Undisclosed have even covered the case were it not for Serial?
- SECProto 4y ago
  One of the hosts of Undisclosed is Rabia Chaudry, who was a childhood friend of Adnan Syed. So really what you are asking here, is whether Ms Chaudry would still have created a podcast without the success of Serial - which is an unanswerable question (but I'd guess yes).
  - jmkd 4y ago
    You're quite right about my wording. Agree it's unanswerable but I was also implying the answer would be no. Serial opened a door - for further investigation into the case, and for using a podcast to explore it - that may have remained closed otherwise.
danso 4y ago
I admire Chaudry but Undisclosed was just a little too much for me. Obviously, dismantling the faulty cell "ping" evidence was great work, but a lot of the content and theories seemed to veer into "throw everything but the kitchen sink at em" territory. But obviously there was a post-Serial audience and hunger for that kind of focus. Serial may have been the catalyst that brought huge national attention to Adnan, but Rabia et al. deserve top credit for being faithful and persistent advocates all these years.
- Xorlev 4y ago
  > but a lot of the content and theories seemed to veer into "throw everything but the kitchen sink at em" territory. In theory, all that should have been necessary is reasonable doubt, so dismantling multiple theories is useful.
JKCalhoun 4y ago
I was uneasy with "Serial". Too much obsession I thought with the accused, scant discussion of the murdered. It was just a sad, dark place I felt it was asking me to be a voyeur of. But, yeah, I guess I don't like "true crime" entertainment.
- smt88 4y ago
  The victim's family refused to participate or provide anything for Serial to use, so they (respectfully) didn't dig up much else about her. The producers of the podcast were very upfront about wanting to give airtime to understanding Lee as a person, but also not feeling like they had her family's blessing or other verifiable information to go on.
- addicted 4y ago
  With the caveat that I do not like/watch/listen to any true crime precisely because of the voyeuristic aspect of it (I’d much rather read, listen to or watch a fictional crime story), I don’t see it necessarily as a negative that a story didn’t get into the victim when the story is about the judicial system. The victim’s story is absolutely minimal here, and in fact, using their background, etc is a key tool used by the prosecution to mislead the jury. Whether the victim was a straight A student or a straight F student has absolutely no bearing on whether the accused killed them (unless the motive is jealousy over their grades or something like that), and yet, the prosecution will present the former (and the defense the latter) in fairly effective bids to manipulate the jury.
- jamestimmins 4y ago
  This is why I stopped listening to Serial as well. The prospect of listening to details of someone's death as entertainment felt morally problematic to me.
mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
I hated Serial so goddamn much. I honestly felt like it did a terrible job of establishing much reasonable doubt and it just sort of... ends? Would you still recommend Undisclosed?
- jibe 4y ago
  No - it is much worse!
- BeetleB 4y ago
  > I honestly felt like it did a terrible job of establishing much reasonable doubt and it just sort of... ends? The goal of Serial wasn't to establish reasonable doubt. She was asked to look into the case, and she's reporting what she found. There was hope that there would be some conclusion, but it wasn't the expectation when she began the story. As for the ending, what exactly would you want? I thought it was clear from the outset that it would be an open ended investigation, and the early episodes were released before she was done with all the interviews, etc. That it may end without a conclusion was kind of the default expectation. That a reporter would be able to dig deep and either exonerate or damn him is closer to the realm of fantasy. His case was not a slam dunk in either direction.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    I'm not mad that Serial didn't provide doubt or prove guilt, though I am somewhat frustrated that the reporter seemed to have so much doubt that (in my opinion) wasn't justified by what she presented in the show, what I am mad about is that it largely amounted to just several hours of someone saying "Maybe he is guilty, but also maybe not?" without any real narrative or arc or progression. I felt like the story ended exactly where it started with no real meaningful change in how the reporter felt, the facts of the case, or even without giving us a particularly compelling biography of Adnan. Everyone made such a fuss over this podcast and in the end absolutely nothing happens in it on any of the axis that could have been interesting and it felt like such a waste of my time after I finished it
    - 4y ago
BeetleB 4y ago
Not listened to Undisclosed, but I did read a fair amount of Rabia Chaudry's book, and to be blunt, it was very off-putting. She was critical of any objective take/perspective. Her presentation was basically the Truth: Adnan Syed is innocent. Anything that supports that statement was accepted relatively uncritically, and anything that didn't was always suspect. BTW, she's not merely a friend - she's his relative.
- robga 4y ago
  > BTW, she's not merely a friend - she's his relative. I don't know that she is. She describes herself as a family friend. Her brother was friends with Adnan. I'm sure they now all consider themselves "family", but I couldn't find any statement declaring blood relation. Perhaps in her book she goes further than I could find on the interweb.
  - BeetleB 4y ago
    Seems my memory was off. I looked at the original source where I had read it, and it also says "friend".
BurningFrog 4y ago
Exculpatory - tending to clear from a charge of fault or guilt.
rayiner 4y ago
Serial left me thinking that Syed was probably guilty, or at the very least the case was a close call. The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted.
- bandyaboot 4y ago
  > The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted. While reducing by an order of magnitude or two the number of innocent people being sent to prison.
- acjohnson55 4y ago
  "It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." --William Blackstone (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio)
- cobaltoxide 4y ago
  > The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted. The standard for criminal conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt." There is no possible way Adnan Syed's conviction reached that standard.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    A witness (Jay) testified at the trial that he saw Hae Min’s dead body in the trunk of Syed’s car. He stuck by that testimony when he was interviewed later: https://theintercept.com/2014/12/29/exclusive-interview-jay-wilds-star-witness-adnan-syed-serial-case-pt-1/ https://theintercept.com/2014/12/29/exclusive-interview-jay-... Forget the feels and focus on Bayesian probability. Hae had left Syed and she winds up dead shortly thereafter. Just statistically, it’s almost always the ex husband/boyfriend that killed her. Jay’s testimony clinches it.
jmull 4y ago
> chief amongst these is not updating the podcast with new (and potentially exculpatory) information as it came to light over the years I don’t think it makes sense to hold a show perpetually responsible to keep producing content to keep it up-to-date.
cush 4y ago
Serial was flawed because they didn't re-record the episodes as new information came out? That's an odd take

by robga 4y ago

Wowfunhappy 4y ago

I tried a bit of Undisclosed but it was... too much for me. In Serial, I was able to keep all the details of the case straight in my head, but Undisclosed went too far. That said, their objective wasn't to entertain and I respect that.

orblivion 4y ago

Wow, lucky kid that his case got this much attention. It can't be the only ambiguous case out there.

BurningFrog 4y ago
There are many thousands more.
skinnymuch 4y ago
He's a 41 year old man now.

jmkd 4y ago

Would Undisclosed have even covered the case were it not for Serial?

SECProto 4y ago
One of the hosts of Undisclosed is Rabia Chaudry, who was a childhood friend of Adnan Syed. So really what you are asking here, is whether Ms Chaudry would still have created a podcast without the success of Serial - which is an unanswerable question (but I'd guess yes).
- jmkd 4y ago
  You're quite right about my wording. Agree it's unanswerable but I was also implying the answer would be no. Serial opened a door - for further investigation into the case, and for using a podcast to explore it - that may have remained closed otherwise.

danso 4y ago

I admire Chaudry but Undisclosed was just a little too much for me. Obviously, dismantling the faulty cell "ping" evidence was great work, but a lot of the content and theories seemed to veer into "throw everything but the kitchen sink at em" territory. But obviously there was a post-Serial audience and hunger for that kind of focus. Serial may have been the catalyst that brought huge national attention to Adnan, but Rabia et al. deserve top credit for being faithful and persistent advocates all these years.

Xorlev 4y ago
> but a lot of the content and theories seemed to veer into "throw everything but the kitchen sink at em" territory. In theory, all that should have been necessary is reasonable doubt, so dismantling multiple theories is useful.

JKCalhoun 4y ago

I was uneasy with "Serial". Too much obsession I thought with the accused, scant discussion of the murdered. It was just a sad, dark place I felt it was asking me to be a voyeur of. But, yeah, I guess I don't like "true crime" entertainment.

smt88 4y ago
The victim's family refused to participate or provide anything for Serial to use, so they (respectfully) didn't dig up much else about her. The producers of the podcast were very upfront about wanting to give airtime to understanding Lee as a person, but also not feeling like they had her family's blessing or other verifiable information to go on.
addicted 4y ago
With the caveat that I do not like/watch/listen to any true crime precisely because of the voyeuristic aspect of it (I’d much rather read, listen to or watch a fictional crime story), I don’t see it necessarily as a negative that a story didn’t get into the victim when the story is about the judicial system. The victim’s story is absolutely minimal here, and in fact, using their background, etc is a key tool used by the prosecution to mislead the jury. Whether the victim was a straight A student or a straight F student has absolutely no bearing on whether the accused killed them (unless the motive is jealousy over their grades or something like that), and yet, the prosecution will present the former (and the defense the latter) in fairly effective bids to manipulate the jury.
jamestimmins 4y ago
This is why I stopped listening to Serial as well. The prospect of listening to details of someone's death as entertainment felt morally problematic to me.

mecha_ghidorah 4y ago

I hated Serial so goddamn much. I honestly felt like it did a terrible job of establishing much reasonable doubt and it just sort of... ends? Would you still recommend Undisclosed?

jibe 4y ago
No - it is much worse!
BeetleB 4y ago
> I honestly felt like it did a terrible job of establishing much reasonable doubt and it just sort of... ends? The goal of Serial wasn't to establish reasonable doubt. She was asked to look into the case, and she's reporting what she found. There was hope that there would be some conclusion, but it wasn't the expectation when she began the story. As for the ending, what exactly would you want? I thought it was clear from the outset that it would be an open ended investigation, and the early episodes were released before she was done with all the interviews, etc. That it may end without a conclusion was kind of the default expectation. That a reporter would be able to dig deep and either exonerate or damn him is closer to the realm of fantasy. His case was not a slam dunk in either direction.
- mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
  I'm not mad that Serial didn't provide doubt or prove guilt, though I am somewhat frustrated that the reporter seemed to have so much doubt that (in my opinion) wasn't justified by what she presented in the show, what I am mad about is that it largely amounted to just several hours of someone saying "Maybe he is guilty, but also maybe not?" without any real narrative or arc or progression. I felt like the story ended exactly where it started with no real meaningful change in how the reporter felt, the facts of the case, or even without giving us a particularly compelling biography of Adnan. Everyone made such a fuss over this podcast and in the end absolutely nothing happens in it on any of the axis that could have been interesting and it felt like such a waste of my time after I finished it
  - 4y ago

BeetleB 4y ago

Not listened to Undisclosed, but I did read a fair amount of Rabia Chaudry's book, and to be blunt, it was very off-putting. She was critical of any objective take/perspective. Her presentation was basically the Truth: Adnan Syed is innocent. Anything that supports that statement was accepted relatively uncritically, and anything that didn't was always suspect. BTW, she's not merely a friend - she's his relative.

robga 4y ago
> BTW, she's not merely a friend - she's his relative. I don't know that she is. She describes herself as a family friend. Her brother was friends with Adnan. I'm sure they now all consider themselves "family", but I couldn't find any statement declaring blood relation. Perhaps in her book she goes further than I could find on the interweb.
- BeetleB 4y ago
  Seems my memory was off. I looked at the original source where I had read it, and it also says "friend".

BurningFrog 4y ago

Exculpatory - tending to clear from a charge of fault or guilt.

rayiner 4y ago

Serial left me thinking that Syed was probably guilty, or at the very least the case was a close call. The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted.

bandyaboot 4y ago
> The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted. While reducing by an order of magnitude or two the number of innocent people being sent to prison.
acjohnson55 4y ago
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." --William Blackstone (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio)
cobaltoxide 4y ago
> The practical truth is that if we required this level of scrutiny for every conviction to stick, we’d multiply by an order of magnitude or two the number of guilty criminals who cannot be convicted. The standard for criminal conviction is "beyond a reasonable doubt." There is no possible way Adnan Syed's conviction reached that standard.
- rayiner 4y ago
  A witness (Jay) testified at the trial that he saw Hae Min’s dead body in the trunk of Syed’s car. He stuck by that testimony when he was interviewed later: https://theintercept.com/2014/12/29/exclusive-interview-jay-wilds-star-witness-adnan-syed-serial-case-pt-1/ https://theintercept.com/2014/12/29/exclusive-interview-jay-... Forget the feels and focus on Bayesian probability. Hae had left Syed and she winds up dead shortly thereafter. Just statistically, it’s almost always the ex husband/boyfriend that killed her. Jay’s testimony clinches it.

jmull 4y ago

> chief amongst these is not updating the podcast with new (and potentially exculpatory) information as it came to light over the years I don’t think it makes sense to hold a show perpetually responsible to keep producing content to keep it up-to-date.

cush 4y ago

Serial was flawed because they didn't re-record the episodes as new information came out? That's an odd take