Serial Podcast

In Serial, the main character that is mostly surrounded by is Adnan. There is also this girl named Hae, in which she is the victim. So, around the year 1999, there was a murder of a girl named Hae Min Lee. She was around 18 years old when her murder happened. Adnan and Hae were together for a couple of months, then out of the blue Hae broke up with Adnan. The police suspected that it was Adnan since he was the former boyfriend and since Hae broke up with him. Investigators must have thought that killing Hae was a form of revenge. In various of the episodes, there were definitely some explanations that did not really make sense, being that Adnan described it. Sarah, which is the narrator of Serial, talks about evidence that she has in depth. One major evidence on Adnan would be his prints in the Leakin Park. There would be some cases where Adnan’s statements would contradict on what he said earlier. 

Sarah says, “First off, there’s a question of whether Adnan asked Hae for a ride that day after school. Was he looking for an excuse to get in her car, so he could kill her? Office Adcock testified that the day she disappeared, Adnan told him he’d asked her for a ride. Adnan then later told a different cop he didn’t ask for a ride. Then, you know how Adnan says he can’t remember much at all about the day Hae went missing? How it was just a normal day to him, nothing much stands out? I’ve wondered about that. The normalness of the day, because, wouldn’t the call from Officer Adcock asking, whether he’s seen Hae just in and of itself, wouldn’t that call make it a not normal day?” As Sarah explained that day would not be a “normal day”, of course, there would be something out of the ordinary for Adnan’s day. He did clearly get a call from the police, asking about a missing person, not that many people get a call like this. First off, Serial was developed by This American Life and the producers are Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyde. 

So, this podcast was produced because it truly gave us an inside of the “realities of criminal prosecution”. Since the incident did happen about 15 years ago, of course, there would be some details left out, someone can forget what they did like six weeks years ago imagine for you to remember everything that you did 15 years ago. Sarah did an amazing job of researching what happened and let alone actually giving the listeners the actual interview on the people that were involved with this case. In my opinion, Serial, after every episode it made me want to listen more and makes me so curious. Sarah also put the information in a specific order so it would make sense, she probably analyzed everything, realized that it was not in an order that she thought it would, so she fixed it and gave us all this estimable information for us to listen. Like this, “...wait, I thought you told McGillivray that you stopped at the log to pee, but now you’re saying you were on your way further back?... This doesn’t get cleared up really and the sort of let it go, but a bunch of things are fishy, the path he takes back into the woods it doesn’t really lead up to the log, so why does he end up there? He didn’t need to head to the log to find a hidden spot to pee, there were so many options and if you’re walking through brush and brambles, don’t you naturally avoid a big log to step over?” This is also something interesting that I found about Sarah, she asks a lot of questions that the police probably didn’t file them or asked Jay directly. 

One of the many things that kind of lured me into the podcast was the background music. It just really fit into the theme of the story, mysterious, calm and overall interesting. When the transitions came along, it was perfect, I clearly heard Sarah’s voice, there were not any background sounds. The tone that Sarah gave was like she understood everything and whenever she was on the phone with somebody, interviewing them, she would sound interested and asking them questions making the conversation even more interesting. Her voice was kind of monotoned most of the episodes but then there were situations in where she kind of had to reenact some of the interviews of Adnan, Jay and so on. In terms of reporting, it was really good as well, the evidence that she had was so good, whenever she gave a claim, Sarah always gave evidence on what she says. Even though it is her opinion, she would find a way to back it up with evidence or would have evidence that was given to her in the files and just add on to it. The editing and transitions were really good, it was well planned and the audio was not choppy or anything weird like that. I realized that at some point Sarah would be kind of introducing another topic and in the background of that, there would be the playing of an interview which would kind of be like the evidence. 

Honestly, there is not much that I can say to improve this podcast but something that Sarah can do to improve is to change her tone. I would notice that when she is talking, her voice would sound the same and not change that much. In my opinion, episode two should have been a little bit longer, since there could have been more information. I mean, it is the beginning of the season, so it should have had a little bit more time and more information. I also loved the idea of doing the events in chronological order, it made so much sense to me, usually, these types of events with time does not make sense to me for some reason. Also, I had an idea when I was listening to the podcast and I do not know if it is the greatest idea or if it is a bad idea, but if I were Sarah Koenig, I would have interviewed the police or investigators that were involved in this case. I know that she interviewed the main one, or basically the one that was in charge of this case, but she could have interviewed others to get their thoughts. 

I would absolutely recommend this podcast to my other classmates if they loved solving cases. For me, this podcast was a little bit intense and it was a good intense like as a story, it would be called the climax which is the most exciting or tense part of the story. Although this story might not catch other people’s attention, it all just really depends on what they like as a person. I would like to add that there are some videos on youtube that are also kind of like a podcast but does not go really into depth of the story or the topic that the youtuber is doing. There are a couple of videos about this specific story of Adnan and Hae, but they do not have the interviews as Sarah did, it’s pretty obvious why they don’t have those interviews one-on-one or a call interview. I guess what I am trying to say is that there are different ways to listen in to this story not necessarily through the podcast because there are some people that are kind of a visual person and then there are others that can be better at listening. 

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