Podcast Roundup Weeks 42 - 44

Okay, I've listened to 138 episodes since my last wrap-up. I kept listening, hoping for a genuinely good show to pop up on my feed to tell you about, but instead I've listened to several mediocre shows.  Here are my lukewarm recommendations.

Jolted is a five-part podcast series by Vermont Public Radio that takes a look at the case of Jack Sawyer, a man in Vermont who had a plan to commit a school shooting, but was stopped before he could implement that plan. The tag line  of the podcast is that it tells the story of a school shooting that didn't happen. Sawyer was originally charged with several felonies, but they were eventually lessened to misdemeanors because, to be honest, he didn't actually do anything illegal. He legally purchased a gun and wrote down detailed plans in a notebook.  The podcast takes a look at this "problem" in the law. When does a thought become a crime (hint: it doesn't - how many people out there still haven't read 1984? sheesh, people)?  The podcast also dives into how this divided Vermonters, but did eventually lead to some reform of some gun laws in the state.

A friend recommended this to me and I'm not sure why. I thought this could have been boiled down into a tight 20-minute segment on This American Life, but instead I listened to two and a half hours of people discussing things that I've already been thinking about for ages. I don't know. Maybe if you haven't actually read the PATRIOT Act and didn't spend much of your twenties thinking about what a "crime" is and how to protect people if you can't actually proactively arrest someone for thinking and planning a crime, this is more interesting than it was for me. Listen if it you haven't thought about this stuff before, but I'm only giving it a mild endorsement.

The Charlotte Observer has a reporter named Scott Fowler who has been covering the story of Rae Carruth, a former NFL wide receiver who was convicted of conspiring to murder his (ex-?) girlfriend, Cherica Adams, who was pregnant when she was shot in 1999, since the incident unfolded. He put together his reporting into a seven-part podcast series called Carruth.

This podcast has sponsorship from the local Charlotte domestic violence agency and the National Coalition against Domestic Violence.  I worked for the NCADV for a time and I've been heavily involved in work against domestic violence and sexual assault for my entire adult life. I wanted this podcast to do its part to raise awareness about domestic violence.  I wanted that.

Instead I got a standard this is the victim, this is the crime, this is the aftermath narrative with a lot of over the top sensationalism about how strong Adams was in the aftermath of the shooting to save her unborn child's life and some pro-life BS about the child, who was born via c-section shortly after the shooting.  There was no examination of the background of perpetrator of the domestic violence, no discussion about what signs someone might have noticed (not to blame the victim or the victim's family and friends, but as an exercise in what to look for in the future to prevent similar crimes) that Carruth was unhinged, no discussion about how pregnancy can increase levels of abuse in already dysfunctional relationships, no discussion about how to get out of an abusive relationship.  It just was an unoriginal look at an all too common abusive relationship with a tiny bit of religious "forgiveness" talk at the end.

I was disappointed. Fowler clearly knows the facts of this case, but I wish he'd tied it to larger issues of importance in the world.

(I also felt this very strongly about the uber-popular podcast Dr. Death. Yes, I get it. This doctor was horrible. But after this podcast ended, I still don't know if I should be worried. Was this a one-off? Is this something that happens all the time? The fixes suggested sound good. Are they feasible? The reason I don't know the answers is because the podcast makers were so fixated on the sensationalism of it all that they forget to have a narrative about how important something is.)

If you like traditional crime narrative podcasts, this one is fine. If talk of domestic violence makes you stand up straighter and pay closer attention to what's going on, skip this one.

I was very intrigued by the idea of Happy Face. This tells the story of Keith Hunter Jesperson, a man known as the "Happy Face Killer," a serial killer who killed at least eight women. The twist of this podcast is that most of it is told from the point of view of his daughter, who was a teenager when he was apprehended.  I thought that the idea of a family member telling the story behind the story sounded fascinating.

But this daughter, Melissa Moore, she's an interesting character. And when I say "interesting," I mean unreliable. I don't actually believe much of what she says and the only real question I have in my mind is how much she believes what she says.  She's a media hound, having been on shows like Oprah and Dr. Phil and having published her own book. In theory, I like the idea that family members can tell us something new, but I guess I don't actually think this person is the best person to do that job.

(Contrast with the woman, Sarah Edmondson, in Escaping NXIVM, who told her story of leaving a cult and I didn't doubt her credibility at all. It's all in the presentation, I guess. I don't understand Edmondson's intentions or actually like her much, but I believed her.)

Also, this thing is a nightmare to listen to if you don't already know Jesperson's story. It goes backward and forward in time. It flips from Moore's narration to the journalist's story. The first scene made the whole thing seem like it was going to be a horror show. I honestly didn't know if this was a fiction podcast at first since I'd never heard of the Happy Face Killer before and the first scene kind of seemed like scripted acting. 

Basically, the whole podcast is a disaster. But I'm still listening, so there must be something here. I'll let you know if I figure out what that is.