If you are a true crime fan, you will understand this feeling. Whether you’re coming home from work, folding laundry, or getting ready for bed, press play on your favorite podcast and get swept up in a fascinating story of crime investigation and human psychology. Masu.
True crime stories depict the incredible resilience of survivors and the satisfaction of knowing justice was served. They have the power to generate incredible public interest in criminal cases that mobilize people around the world. But they also depict horrifying details of humanity at its worst.
Although the genre seems to be exploding in popularity across all forms of media right now, it actually has had a strong fan base going back centuries, Dr. Kelly Bowling told Fox News Digital over the phone. told. Bowling is an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where his research includes: true crime podcast and their audience.
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Podchaser is a podcast database website that aims to aggregate podcast information from various platforms, with over 23,000 podcasts in the true crime category.
According to a Pew Research Center study, true crime is the most common topic on top-ranked podcasts, with 34% of U.S. adults who have listened to a podcast in the past year saying they regularly listen to true crime podcasts. The answer is yes.
According to the Pew Research Center, among U.S. podcast listeners, women are nearly twice as likely as men to regularly listen to true crime podcasts (44% of female podcast listeners vs. 23% of male podcast listeners) ). (Jonas Walzberg/Photo Alliance via Getty Images)
The true crime genre is not new, but it has become more popular over time. People love learning about criminology, psychology, and the American justice system.
” FOX True Crime Podcast with Emily Compagno” and 4.7 stars on Apple Podcasts, and Compagno himself has 444,000 followers on Instagram.
Compagno is praised for his depth of reporting, sensitivity, and ability to make complex topics easy to understand. Bowling suggested that the educational side of true crime has great potential for positive change.
She has covered cases such as the Boston Marathon bombing, the murder of four college students in Idaho, and the story of Holly Dunn and how she survived the railroad killer.
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Bowling points to examples where podcasts have become so popular that fans have waited outside the courthouse while the case is proceeding inside the courthouse, or cases have been moved due to local coverage. I mentioned it.
Lee Hae Min’s murder
The first season of the podcast Serial focused on the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, in which her boyfriend Adnan Masud Said was convicted before a series of appeals brought it to the Supreme Court. and was imprisoned.
“There were fans in the courthouse in Baltimore and in the U.S. Supreme Court who absolutely supported his release. Not only that…he was released and had a job at a local university waiting for him. That completely changed the perception of the podcast,” Bowling said.
Syed was hired as a program associate at Georgetown University’s Prison and Justice Initiative.
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‘Serial’ turns the true crime genre on its head as the first major true crime publication to focus on the alleged perpetrators rather than the victims, whose families would not speak to the hosts .
”[The host] Literally, the voice of the accused was placed at the center. Through phone interviews with her, his voice was at the center of every episode of the podcast,” Bowling said.
In fact, after listening to “Serial,” audiences came to believe that Syed was innocent, and there are now many people advocating on his behalf. The charges against Saeed were dropped, but his procedural violations resulted in him being charged again.
murder of cooper harris
Season 2 of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s podcast Breakdown tells the story of Justin Ross Harris, who is on trial for killing his young son Cooper by leaving him in a hot car for hours. It was taken away.
Harris maintains it was an accident, and his wife testified on his behalf even after Breakdown reported that Ross had been having an affair with a 16-year-old girl.
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“So when that comes out, we’re all going to hate him, right? That doesn’t make him a murderer…The judge in that trial, Judge Mary Staley, has already said… “I actually granted a change of venue because of the pre-trial coverage that had been reported, because I knew the Atlanta Journal-Constitution would cover it as a live podcast,” Boling told Fox News Digital. Told.
Crime scene investigators are collecting evidence after police shot and killed a man near Northwest 7th Courthouse and 57th Street in Miami on March 7, 2024. (Al Diaz/Miami Herald/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)
Ultimately, Harris’s conviction was overturned, finding that Harris’ infidelity, presented as a motive for killing her son, had unfairly prejudiced the jury.
“Has it changed our opinion of that father? Absolutely…has it changed the opinion of the defense or the prosecution? Probably so. But yes, podcasts have a very powerful way of influencing ” [these cases]. And I think a lot of that has to do with the audio portion of the media,” Bowling said.
Mr. Bowling emphasized the unique position of true crime as a medium that is assumed to be true by definition, but is framed as a narrative.
“Well, we’ve been sitting around campfires and telling stories for centuries, right? We’re drawn into the story and emotionally in a different way than when we’re watching a documentary. You get caught up in it,” she said.
“We feel like we have a close relationship with our hosts. We feel like we know the defendants well enough to go to court, take a day off, and hang up signs outside.”
The accessibility of true crime creators and their fans also varies by media, especially when reporting events as they unfold, which inevitably leads some fans to conduct their own investigations without being bound by a set standard. It will be.
Fans have the opportunity to interact with the real criminals on internet forums, but in the past amateur detectives have revealed personal information about people involved in ongoing cases or antagonized the families of the dead. There is also.
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This sense of involvement in following the case step by step is reinforced by the medium itself. Listening to podcasts is an intimate form of media consumption. If you’re wearing headphones, only you and the host will speak directly into your ears.
And once the detailed descriptions of the perpetrators and victims are drawn, it’s easy to see why listeners become personally interested in the outcome of the case they’ve been following closely for so long.
Bowling said Serial was the first major true crime publication to focus on the alleged perpetrators rather than the victims whose families refused to be interviewed.
“If you think about it ethically, the question becomes should she take up this story? She did… and it completely changed the genre, and unfortunately, many unethical I think it opened the door to a lot of new work,” Bowling said.
While journalists and lawyers who create true crime podcasts have a code of ethics to follow, there are no accepted ethical standards across the genre.
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New episodes of “The FOX True Crime Podcast w/ Emily Compagno” are released every Tuesday, with bonus episodes every Thursday. (Peter Byrne/PA Image via Getty Images)
Bowling spoke of his “admiration” of famous murderers like Jeffrey Dahmer, whose crimes were dramatized by Netflix. Producers of various true crime projects she spoke to in her research recommend focusing on the “why” when choosing which cases to cover, she says.
“Why do we make this? Why is this story important to tell? I think that’s where the ethical conversation starts. Do we need another documentary about Dahmer? No. What’s the story? I was slammed into the ground a million times,” Boling told FOX News Digital.
Mr Bowling expressed concern about the impact of making criminals famous and the impact on victims’ families. She emphasized that production companies can make whatever they want, but suggested that the bright side of true crime is its educational potential.
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“What will people learn from this? What will it prevent? Who will it educate? What kinds of laws will it promote?”
Boling’s future research will examine the current state of ethics in true crime podcasting and propose a set of guidelines.
This is uncharted territory, but in a world where Evan Peters won a Golden Globe for his portrayal of Jeffrey Dahmer and where there’s a thriving market for serial killers’ belongings, she wonders what motivates her to create a particular piece. I went back to the idea of careful consideration. of true crime media.
“How can we tap into the good parts of true crime: the education, the healing, the closure for our friends and family? Good things can come from that.”
