Serial is seriously good
As a person who spends much of their life on the road, podcasts are a great way to entertain myself from the mindless flashes of cement on the freeway.
Serial, a podcast from the creators of This American Life and hosted by Sarah Koenig, has three seasons out, each surrounding different people and different cases. The podcast examines the criminal justice system through the specifics of stories.
The first season discusses a case involving a man named Adnan Syed, who states that he was falsely convicted for the murder of Hae Min Lee when he was seventeen years old. Koenig interviews Syed, now a 37 year old jailman, as he tries to prove his innocence.
In Serial, you can’t help but sympathize with Syed, and as you listen to each episode in the season you wonder if the new found answers are enough to free him. The podcast acknowledges the difficulty of using memories from over 10 years ago as reliable sources of evidence; however, it also critically analyzes the falsity of the case.
The second season investigates the more popularly known case of Bowe Bergdahl, a U.S. prisoner of the Taliban for nearly five years, and his journey home.
The Serial website describes the third season as “A year inside a typical American courthouse. This season we tell you the extraordinary stories of ordinary cases. One courthouse, told week by week.”
Koenig and reporter/producer Emmanuel Dzotsi examine the cases of the criminal justice system by spending a year in the Cleveland, Ohio courthouse. Koenig and Dzotsi tell the stories of regular cases and regular people.
If you are the type of person who loves mysteries and are looking for something to keep your mind off the road, listen to Serial, the perfect criminal justice series.
