Sarah Koenig: “I’ve never been a missionary for true crime podcasts”

Sarah Koenig had a confession to make to the 2,000 or so people gathered at London's Southbank Center: Despite creating the most successful podcast of all time, she doesn't listen to podcasts outside of work. “I'm sorry!” Koenig offered hastily, her voice rising. “I knew I would be asked about it and thought I should think of something, but I knew that would be a lie!”

Koenig, who lives in Baltimore, Maryland, was in the United Kingdom for an International Women's Podcast Festival event to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Serialthe hit documentary series that changed the medium forever. Seriala spin-off of the renowned This American life The radio show and podcast have been downloaded more than 300 million times since its initial release in 2014 and won the prestigious Peabody Award. The first It podcast, Serial proved to be a popular entry point into the medium, which soon grew exponentially: In 2014, only 8 percent of Americans listened to a podcast weekly; That share has since more than quadrupled to 34 percent – ​​equivalent to 98 million people – while the global podcasting market is worth an estimated $24 billion. The spread of the true crime genre in particular can be attributed to this Serialis the first season: a 12-part investigation into the 1999 murder of 18-year-old Baltimore high school student Hae Min Lee and the trial that led to the conviction of her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed for murder. (In 2022, Syed's conviction was overturned in light of new DNA testing and information about the possible involvement of two different suspects. It has since been reinstated after various appeals.)

“I'm not an audio fan, and I know that sounds strange because that's what I do,” said Koenig – wearing a navy blazer and a blue shirt open at the neck and a shaped necklace of a shark's tooth released Me. The day after their Southbank show we chatted over coffee in a roller cafe in Waterloo, south London. “I love it, but the fact that I work in it is almost an accident.”

For Koenig, who began her career as a print journalist, the stratospheric success of Serial was also coincidental. After I joined the This American life When she became a full-time staff member in 2004, she had only planned for the story to be a single episode of the series (Julie Snyder, Serial's co-producer convinced her otherwise). Koenig considers the almost simultaneous release of the iPhone 6, the first Apple product with the Apple Podcast app pre-installed, to be a “stupid” driver of the show's popularity. “I don’t watch true crime… I’m not interested in it; I didn’t know what I was doing – really,” Koenig said at the Southbank event, hosted by BBC journalist Samira Ahmed.

There is a sad but enduring truth in journalism: “If it bleeds, it leads.” – Stories of violence and/or murder attract the most public attention and give news outlets important clicks on their content. But for KingSerial It wasn't about murder, but about whether the integrity and ideals of the American justice system were preserved: “There was the basic level of the plot, but that's not enough story for me,” said Koenig, who has always refused to talk about it to speculate who murdered Lee. “It was much more [the story] of: 'How was this person convicted based on this evidence?' And is that okay or is that not okay?' …Could this story be a vehicle to explore the larger questions?”

Nonetheless, more sophisticated questions about the workings of the American justice system were secondary to an audience seeking to solve the crime. The identities of witnesses who participated anonymously in the series were revealed by the podcast's cult following on social media. After Serial Broadcast, more and more true crime podcasts and, more recently, amateur detectives on TikTok tried to repeat its success. (In 2023, Lancashire Police criticized detectives on social media, saying investigating officers had been “inundated with false information, accusations and rumors” in their search for Nicola Bulley, who died by accidental drowning.) “This is of course worrying,” Koenig told me. “Should I feel responsible for this? [that]? Because somehow I don't. I can't control what people do… Honestly, I've never been a proselytizer for anything, but definitely not, 'Everyone's doing a true crime podcast!'”

The first series of Serial was both criticized and admired. “This is not a podcast for me,” Young Lee, Hae’s brother, said in a statement after Syed’s conviction was overturned. “It's real life that will never end.” Koenig has repeatedly expressed her condolences to the Lee family (who did not honor her invitation to attend). Serial). But she's not “too worried about the chatter” surrounding the series: What matters to Koenig is what her reporting reveals about the justice system. “When people say, 'Well, we shouldn't deal with old cases because it might cause distress to the victim's family,' I guess I just don't agree with that. I think you have to look at old cases if you want to study whether our system works – and we have to study whether our system works. I just don’t know how else you’re supposed to do it.”

Sarah Koenig was born in July 1969 in New York City. Her father, Julian Koenig, was a copywriter; Her mother, Maria Eckhart, comes from Tanzania. After the two divorced, Maria married the American writer Peter Matthiessen, a co-founder of the literary magazine the Paris review.

What started as a spin-off of This American life became its own real business when the New York Times bought the production company behind it Serial in 2020 for a reported $25 million. Given the decline of American journalism — more than 21,400 jobs were lost last year, the highest number since 2020 — the financial freedom afforded to Koenig and her colleagues at Serial Productions was a “privilege,” she said. There are now four seasons of Serial – and eight other long-form audio series from Serial Productions – on topics such as the captivity and subsequent desertion of US soldier Bowe Bergdahl under the Taliban and the repeated failures to close Guantanamo Bay.

Given widespread online disinformation and political corruption, what impact might the decline of the US media have on its ability to hold politicians accountable? Koenig pauses for the first time in our hour-long conversation. “I don't know. I know I should, but when I look historically at the problems society has faced over time, they seem pretty consistent to me, so maybe we've never been like this a great power, as we think in journalism.” Rather, the outlets are more like “Chihuahuas nipping at the heels of power,” she suggested.

Koenig brings up Donald Trump's claim that Haitian immigrants ate pets in Springfield, Ohio, during a presidential election debate in September. “It is So Crazy, but it's such a clear example of how absolute nonsense dominates the national discussion. And I guess I'm wondering: How many Americans still believe that to be true? Have we done enough good work to spread the word across the country: “This is bullshit – and we have a vice presidential candidate.” [JD Vance] Who basically admitted that it was nonsense but that it was rhetorically useful?”

Koenig, who sounds confident in her carefully scripted podcasts, struggled to express her concerns in person: “Please know that I'm not an expert in this field – it's just me talking, isn't it?” For her, that's it Issues facing Americans are “not just a disinformation problem,” but fractures resulting from persistent structural inequalities. “Even if you debunk the nonsense – 'The 2020 election was stolen from Donald Trump: That's not true.'” Immigrants eat dogs: That's not true…” – these things point to a deeper divide in the country, and an economic one: that the gap between haves and have-nots in the United States is so great and deep-rooted. That’s the problem – and that’s the problem that our politics has nothing to do with.”

According to Sarah Koenig, this divide “is not something that came from Trump, just as Boris Johnson didn’t come out of nowhere.” Instead, the bigger picture must be looked at. “What I see [are] These same problems have not been adequately addressed by our capitalist democracy for decades and centuries, and these are the fruits of that problem. And yes, the media plays a role; Yes, politicians play a role. But when you have this economic system and you don't deal with the massive failures that cause at least half – if not more – of people, here's what happens. It ends here.”

[See also: The new media barons]