re: Deputies arrest 4 in LSU student Madison Brooks case

For the podcasters.

True crime podcasting is a huge market now. I get that. And in a way, I think podcasting has vitalized young journalists who had no future in a moribund print media world. With not much more than a phone, you can freelance in a way that makes Woodward green with envy. And if your show hits, it’s profitable.

But what’s the price for the people involved? To the victim? To the accused?

Take the accused. If the case were tried in an actual courtroom, there are procedures and rules with 500 years of wisdom behind them. There is an impartial arbiter of what is and is not used to discern truth. There is an objective standard of guilt. And MOST importantly. . . there is the cauldron of cross-examination by exacting practitioners trained in its art.

Can a podcaster offer that? Sure, you talk to lots of people. But what are your standards for truth? Do you think a witness will offer you the same level of truth sitting at a Starbucks as he would on the witness stand, where he is told he will go to jail if he lies? And at the end of your story, what is the verdict? How do you definitively resolve the narrative? And if you can’t, what is your podcast but prurient intellectual onanism used by people to distract themselves on the Stairmaster?

You are also allowing witnesses to self-select. They can tell you no. That means that every single person who talks to you gets something out of talking to you. At a trial, every person who knows anything (accused excepted) will have his butt in the witness chair under subpoena, like it or not.

There’s also a subtle compulsion to talk. Take the family. “Hi, I’m Mr podcaster. I’m going to post this on iTunes. Do you want to talk to me?” What’s the family going to say? If they say no, then they worry people will think they are hiding something.

Ok. That’s two cups. Welcome any thoughts.