An ethical analysis of Serial
Season one of the Serial podcast explores the 1999 murder of high school student Hae Min Lee in Baltimore, MD. Narrator and podcast host Sarah Koenig investigates Hae’s death through a series of interviews with her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, who was convicted of her murder and is currently serving a life sentence in a Maryland correctional facility. She also interviews former police officers and detective, experts in criminal justice and psychology, former classmates and friends of Adnan and Hae, various witnesses and participants in Adnan’s trial, and a range of other people who are connected to the case in some . After launching in October 2014, Serial quickly became the most downloaded podcast of all time.
Part of what makes Serial so interesting — and popular — is the way in which the story is told. Unlike other investigative series, Koenig invites listeners to follow along as she explores the evidence for and against Adnan in what is essentially real-time. The story is told in the first-person from Koenig’s perspective, and focuses as much on Koenig and her journey to unearth the facts of the story as it does on Adnan’s case or Hae’s murder.
Below is an ethical breakdown of a handful narrative, artistic, and stylistic elements found throughout season one of Serial.
ANALYTICAL FRAMEWORK
The set of journalism ethics set forth by the Society of Professional Journalists provides a useful and generally accepted framework with which to evaluate the ethical merit of a piece of journalism. The SPJ Code of Ethics, like all ethical frameworks, serves merely as a series of guidelines and useful suggestions for making ethical judgments and decisions when doing and consuming journalism.
At the same time, it is also reasonable to ask whether or not Serial should be judged solely by the ethical standards reserved for journalism.
Some aspects of traditional journalistic ethics have, over time, increasingly become either irrelevant or are no longer accepted as inviolable doctrine as they may have been in the past.
Traditional notions of so-called journalistic objectivity, for example, and the need for authors to remove themselves entirely from the narrative are no longer universally accepted pillars of ethical journalism. This has been the case at least since the rise of New Journalism in the 1960s and ’70s, when the use of the subjective perspective and immersive storytelling styles entered the mainstream.
There is also the issue of whether or not Keonig is a journalist in this context, either by admission, implication, or otherwise. At the beginning of the very first episode, Koenig says, “I’m not a detective or a private investigator. I’m not even a crime reporter.” She later adds that she used to be a reporter for The Baltimore Sun. She does, however, refer to herself as “the reporter” during episode seven, and again in episode 8, but those are the only three instances.
Throughout the entire season, Koenig treats her role (and the production of the series as a whole) as an exercise in narrative, nonfiction storytelling. Despite this, Koenig makes a sustained and overt effort to remain independent, ethical, and even-handed in her telling of the story. She acknowledges when she is speculating or may be wrong, attempts to mitigate any unnecessary harm to the people she deals with and talks about, and generally adheres to an unspoken but clearly present code of personal and professional ethics.
It seems more appropriate, then, to evaluate Serial using a framework that relies on a combination of ethical principles, drawn from the tenets of both journalism and nonfiction storytelling, as well as the realm of artistic expression.
ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS
Below is a list of some potential ethical dilemmas, issues, questions, and considerations as they relate to Serial and, in particular, Sarah Koenig’s role in the storytelling process. Each section includes an overview of the issue at hand, along with a brief analysis or assessment of the ethical implications associated with that issue.
One story, told week by week
The phrase, “One story, told week by week” first appears in the introduction to the second episode of season one, and Koenig goes on to open a number of additional episodes with it. This unofficial slogan for Serial seems simple, but it represents a fundamental change in the way people produce and consume radio journalism. Only breaking news involves similar elements of immediacy and suspense. This iterative, immediate storytelling style has the potential to expose the producers of Serial to a range of ethical dilemmas.
Koenig, for example, voices her concerns, explains her thinking, and reveals her assumptions about various individuals involved in Adnan’s case on several different occasions over the course of the first season. Much of what she says during these moments is essentially speculation. Koenig readily admits this, and often prefaces her statements by reminding her listeners that she could be wrong.
Whether or not her on-air speculation constitutes an ethical violation depends on the amount of influence and sway her statements are expected or understood to have on her listeners. Is it unethical to expose an audience to potentially unfounded or misleading information, even if that information is couched in plausible deniability and disclaimers? Are there other examples in media where audiences are exposed to such speculation? Of course.
Court cases and criminal trials are regularly broadcast on television as they happen, and are viewed by audiences that can range in the millions. During these proceedings, both attorneys present the best possible case for their client, and the audience is expected to keep the context and the respective biases in mind. Everyone understands that the primary obligation of the prosecuting and defending attorneys is to win their case, not to provide the most honest and ethical representation of the facts.
If television audiences can be expected to understand this, radio audiences should be given at least the same level of respect and intellectual deference.
Cliffhangers and dramatic effect
The “serialized” structure of Serial is one of the reasons the podcast became such a widespread and popular cultural phenomenon. Listeners are kept on the edge of their seats at the end of each episode, forced to wait an entire week before they can hear what happens next.
To add to the suspense, most (if not virtually all) of the episodes end with some kind of a cliffhanger. The following quote, for example, is from the end of the first episode:
Female Speaker:
I’m literally thinking, like, could he have gone crazy?
Male Speaker:
Jay told me he was being blackmailed by Adnan. Because Adnan knew that Jay couldn’t go to the police.
Rabia (co-host):
Like if this works, every question we’ve had for the past eight months, he knows it.
Male Speaker:
Yeah, I mean, who else did it? They’re running out of suspects.
[End of episode one]
This exchange is a perfect example of Koenig and the producers at WBEZ attempting to add to the suspense of the story in order to maintain the listeners’ attention and keep them coming back for more the following week. The goal is to leave listeners engaged, invested, and wanting more.
There is nothing inherently wrong with using elements of drama and other compelling narrative devices to draw in and retain your audience. Journalists across all mediums employ variations of these tactics in virtually every piece of work the produce. The only difference between using a compelling anecdotal lede and ending an episode of Serial with a cliffhanger is how effective it is. Narrative devices and elements of storytelling are either acceptable or they aren’t.
The real question is whether or not Koenig and her team remain true to the facts of the story.
The art of journalism
We have established that using dramatic flare and narrative appeal to keep an audience invested in a story arc is not unethical in and of itself. As long as the author maintains the contextual and factual accuracy of the story, they should be free to employ various storytelling devices and creative tools to help drive the narrative. Moving the story forward, however, isn’t always the only goal when telling a story.
Good stories don’t just recite facts. Good stories can also force audiences to consider the facts from different perspectives and see the characters in a new light. Sometimes that requires the author or narrator to introduce certain aspects of the story in a particular order or fashion that may seem manipulative — and it is. Manipulation is, in fact, built into the very core of storytelling itself. After all, why even tell a story in the first place, if not to elicit some kind of response?
Journalists, like all storytellers, tell stories to influence people. The only difference is that journalists are required to stay true to both the letter and the spirit of the truth when they do journalism.
The dangers of real-time speculation
One of the more ethically ambiguous and hotly debated questions surrounding the Serial podcast has to do with the stream-of-consciousness style narration and reporting that Koenig employs each week. The question of whether or not this is an ethical approach to nonfiction storytelling hinges on the possibility that something Koenig says in an episode may turn out to be false or possibly even defamatory.
Jessica Goldstein points this out in her article for ThinkProgress.com. Goldstein quotes Edward Wasserman, Dean of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism:
“You don’t want to be giving voice to things because they’re plausible, or they’re possible, if they turn out to be false. As a reporter, you’re certainly going to have these kinds of speculations. That’s what’s going to drive your reporting: developing those hypotheses and testing them. But when you’re raising doubts about people’s truths and integrity that may turn out to be baseless, and it’s playing out publicly, that’s a concern.”
This is a very valid and important point, but it’s not the only factor worth considering when determining the ethical and narrative value of this particular style. As I mentioned in the previous section above, good stories do more than simply convey information. They can also teach people how to think and how to engage with the world around them.
Books and other long-form mediums employ this tactic all the time. In fact, it could be argued that the serialized and extended, single-subject focus of Serial requires a reevaluation of podcast’s overall structure. In this light, Serial starts to look more like a book than a TV show or a newscast.
Serial is not intended to be consumed in bits and pieces. Like most books, Serial is meant to be consumed in a single, chronological order.
It is this sustained, linear format that allay Serial’s ethical concerns in this area. This format allows Koenig to take her listeners through the story in a way that challenges and subverts their initial reactions while forcing them to second-guess any eagerness to pass judgment before hearing all the facts. This linear progression separates a thought experiment like Serial from thoughtless expression or mere speculation.
To be sure, Koenig’s thought process when considering the facts ofAdnan’s case is nothing short of rigorous and exhaustive, especially when she is contemplating information that may be inconclusive or unconfirmed. When there is doubt, Koenig even hedges her speculations with verbal disclaimers that let her listeners know that what they’re hearing are indeed just speculations.
Goldstein acknowledges this in her article, but counters with a quote from Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication, who argues:
“The problem with that, and the reason news organizations don’t do it, is that you’ll find inconsistencies. You’ll find people lied to you; you’ll find you overlooked a piece of information, and you may have to reassess or revamp your story. I’m not saying it’s unethical per se, just that there are these potential pitfalls.”
In order for Kirtley’s argument to work, she would have apply it to other forms of journalism, especially radio journalists. Every time Brian Lehrer, for example, asks his WNYC listeners to call in for one of his “informal, unofficial, thoroughly unscientific” polls, he is essentially doing the same thing Koenig is accused of doing, except Lehrer does his schtick live.
Lehrer gathers, has his guests speculate on, and disseminates unverified information over the airwaves in real-time but, unlike Koenig, he gets a pass because he makes sure to preface these bits with a self-aware, often witty disclaimer about the potentially misleading nature of his so-called listener polls.
Obviously, there is a difference between playfully disseminating unscientific poll results over the air and speculating as to whether or not someone was involved in or responsible for murder — but that difference lies only in the severity of the subject in question.
Echoes from 1999
The most troubling element of the Serial format is the fact that Koenig and her team accept calls, tips, and information from people who explicitly state that they have been listening along to the podcast each week. This is potentially troubling because it is entirely possible — if not likely — that their memory of the events and their understanding of the facts from those fateful days in 1999 may have been altered simply by hearing Koenig’s version.
Koenig’s version includes the benefit of improved hindsight, while the recollections of those who were in some way involved in the case when it actually happened are undoubtedly worse — or at least somewhat different — than they were at the time.
Furthermore, the unprecedented popularity of Serial could reasonably cause someone to call in with the sole purpose of becoming part of such a massive social and cultural phenomenon. Even those who did not intend to lie or bend the truth may alter their story — consciously or unconsciously — in order to make themselves appear more favorable in the eyes of such a large audience.
That being said, this is yet another example of the double-standard at play between Serial and virtually every other popular media format.
Either people cannot be trusted to tell the truth when given a national platform, or they can. What is the difference between the temptation to lie to pundits on national television, to reporters during a major investigative story, and to Sarah Koenig on an episode of Serial?
Several concerns come to mind regarding CNN’s ethics when one of their reporters approaches people on the streets in the wake of a mass shooting or some other horrific tragedy — even though this has frequently resulted in the propagation of misleading or even patently false information.
Is there a risk that some of the sources used in Serial — particularly those that showed up during the second half of the season — may have changed their stories or “misremembered” facts after all this time, or after hearing Koenig’s version? Absolutely. Is that risk any more prevalent on Serial than it is in other areas of journalism? Probably not.
Conclusion
Whether the issue is dramatic cliffhangers, the use of music, serialized formatting, real-time speculation, or the very success of the podcast itself, I would argue that Serial is just as ethical, if not more so, as the journalism and nonfiction storytelling found on virtually every other medium. In fact, it could even be argued that Serial is one of the more ethical examples of audio journalism out there.
Koenig and her team consistently demonstrate a dedication to both the facts and the context of the story, as well as an attentiveness to listener tendencies, and a respect for all subjects and characters involved in the storytelling process. They do not denigrate, dismiss, or jump to conclusions throughout the entire course of the program, and they are always quick to address any mistakes as they come to light.
I believe it would be very difficult to condemn Serial as wholly unethical without simultaneously and summarily condemning most, if not all, other forms of journalism and nonfiction storytelling as well.
