Podcast Roundup Week #8

This week I listened to 40 episodes. I honestly have no idea if that's a lot or not. I've actually added a bit of music into my life, so I'm listening to a lot of country music from the 1990s and early 2000s in the morning when I might have otherwise listened to podcasts, so I'm sure it's lower than it could be, but I think that's probably fine.

I started listening to a podcast called Cults this week. I listened to the first four episodes, a two-part series on Charles Manson and a two-part series on Heaven's Gate. I thought the episodes did a nice job of being well-researched, but also relatively concise. They definitely could have taken the Manson Family and made it a twelve part series like You Must Remember This did, but for something much more superficial, I thought it was enjoyable. I DESPISE how they integrate their ad breaks, so I spend a great deal of time fast-forwarding and I'm sure I lost entire minutes of content just making sure I wasn't there as they tried to somehow connect spree killers to mattresses, but I can get over it. Hopefully the ad transitions will get better as the show goes on.

I listened to the entire six-episode run of Missing Alissa, along with the two update episodes.  I have complicated feelings on this one. It tells the story of Alissa Turney, a 17-year-old girl who went missing in Phoenix, Arizona in 2001.  We hear from her sister, from friends, and try to piece together if Turney actually ran away or was the victim of something much more nefarious.  Part of the "something much more nefarious" may or may not be the result of bad actions from Turney's stepfather, who was her legal guardian after her mother died of cancer. It makes me veeeerrrrrry uncomfortable that the podcast throws around accusations about this man when he's never been charged and they name and SECRETLY RECORD A CONVERSATION with him.  I think it's a shame that Turney's story did not get attention when it was a recent development, but I'm also leery of a modern day witch hunt for someone. 

I find that entertainment is often filled with ethical quagmires and I frequently find myself wondering if true crime as a genre is, no matter how respectful, taking advantage of victims and their worst moments.  I'm not going to beat myself up over it, but as I listened to the Missing Alissa series, I knew that I was listening, not because I thought I could help, but because it was a mystery and I just wanted to know more.  That doesn't make me a bad person, but it does make me question some of my listening decisions.