Podcasts

[kostgard]

Has anyone else been keeping up with the post-Serial drama surrounding this case?

After the Jay interview The Intercept interviewed the main prosecutor, Kevin Urick (who told Serial that he couldn't talk to them because he wasn't authorized and hadn't obtained permission from the Lee family to discuss it... but then could a few weeks later to someone else?).

There was no surprise in the interview, other than he claimed that Serial didn't try to contact him until mid - December to verify the things Don told them. Serial states they tried several times to contact him and list all the places they tried to reach him. But the big story was the way the Intercept reporters spent half their interview shitting on Serial and Koenig, and then it was revealed that they edited their article to support their "Serial is awful and Koenig is a stupid head!" argument. Well, it had to get reposted with several edits, and both reporters took to Twitter to act like a couple of 12 year olds about it and to Mean Girl anyone who disagreed with their point of view. If all ended with them looking like total jackasses and one of them leaving for Jezebel.

But today, even bigger news - Asia McClain, the gal who said she saw Adnan in the library at the time the state says Hae was murdered, has come forward with a new affidavit sticking to her story, and also stating that she was not pressured into writing her letters (Urick stated in court that she was) and stating that when she contacted Urick in 2010 after a PI hired by Adnan's family tracked her down to testify at an appeal hearing to figure out what was going on, he told her that the state had a solid case against Adnan and she shouldn't bother making the trip back to Maryland to testify, so she didn't. It wasn't until she heard Serial that she realized the case was very shaky and she could have made a difference. So she decided to come forward.

We'll see where this goes. It should be noted that Urick was no longer with the state's attorney's office in 2010 when Asia called him, so why did he talk to her at all instead of referring her to the SA office? He also poo-poos all the changes in Jay's stories and still points to the cell phone records as proof when they don't support Jay's latest version, and barely did back in 1999. He also ignored the note from AT&T that said you can't use incoming calls for location purposes and said that Adnan checked his voice mail at a certain time (as proof he had the phone) when the report from AT&T clearly states it was an incoming call being sent to voice mail. Adnan's lawyer should have picked up on all that, but has been established that she sucked.

I still don't know if Adnan is guilty or not, but clearly some shade-y shade was going on.

I also watched a YouTube video where people went to the spot where Hae was buried and...it's totally visible from the road. I thought it was far more secluded than that. Who the hell buries a body in s place that is clearly visible from the road? Nothing in this case makes sense to me.

[angelaudie]

Jan 20, 2015 18:37:33 GMT -4 kostgard said:

Has anyone else been keeping up with the post-Serial drama surrounding this case?

After the Jay interview The Intercept interviewed the main prosecutor, Kevin Urick (who told Serial that he couldn't talk to them because he wasn't authorized and hadn't obtained permission from the Lee family to discuss it... but then could a few weeks later to someone else?).

There was no surprise in the interview, other than he claimed that Serial didn't try to contact him until mid - December to verify the things Don told them. Serial states they tried several times to contact him and list all the places they tried to reach him. But the big story was the way the Intercept reporters spent half their interview shitting on Serial and Koenig, and then it was revealed that they edited their article to support their "Serial is awful and Koenig is a stupid head!" argument. Well, it had to get reposted with several edits, and both reporters took to Twitter to act like a couple of 12 year olds about it and to Mean Girl anyone who disagreed with their point of view. If all ended with them looking like total jackasses and one of them leaving for Jezebel.

But today, even bigger news - Asia McClain, the gal who said she saw Adnan in the library at the time the state says Hae was murdered, has come forward with a new affidavit sticking to her story, and also stating that she was not pressured into writing her letters (Urick stated in court that she was) and stating that when she contacted Urick in 2010 after a PI hired by Adnan's family tracked her down to testify at an appeal hearing to figure out what was going on, he told her that the state had a solid case against Adnan and she shouldn't bother making the trip back to Maryland to testify, so she didn't. It wasn't until she heard Serial that she realized the case was very shaky and she could have made a difference. So she decided to come forward.

We'll see where this goes. It should be noted that Urick was no longer with the state's attorney's office in 2010 when Asia called him, so why did he talk to her at all instead of referring her to the SA office? He also poo-poos all the changes in Jay's stories and still points to the cell phone records as proof when they don't support Jay's latest version, and barely did back in 1999. He also ignored the note from AT&T that said you can't use incoming calls for location purposes and said that Adnan checked his voice mail at a certain time (as proof he had the phone) when the report from AT&T clearly states it was an incoming call being sent to voice mail. Adnan's lawyer should have picked up on all that, but has been established that she sucked.

I still don't know if Adnan is guilty or not, but clearly some shade-y shade was going on.

I also watched a YouTube video where people went to the spot where Hae was buried and...it's totally visible from the road. I thought it was far more secluded than that. Who the hell buries a body in s place that is clearly visible from the road? Nothing in this case makes sense to me.

I've been following and Lord have mercy it's just a giant mess isn't it?

I'm still amazed by the lack of professionalism exhibited by Natasha Vargas-Cooper and Ken Silverstein. Though I think Natasha was gunning from Sarah Koenig from the beginning. I remember an interview she did where she asked the reporter (paraphrasing), "Well don't you think it was irresponsible to move forward with the podcast without talking to Jay and Urick?" The reporter was all, "No, since she made an effort to contact them and had plenty of other things to work with." SVC basically like, "Oh. Well I don't want you think I'm after Sarah!" Yeah right. She was clearly surprised to learn some of her fellow journalists didn't have any issues with Sarah's reporting. And then her freaking out on other reporters for not contacting her for an interview for their op-eds. Umm, they are writing an opinion on your reporting Natasha. That doesn't require an interview with you. And to top it all off declaring Urick is definitely not a liar and is totes professional. My personal fave, though, is Ken Silverstein declaring The Intercept's interviews fearless and made Serial pointless. Oh and he's not afraid of reddit! Nope! He's so unafraid of reddit and he will tell you repeatedly how reddit don't scared him! *whispers* I think he's full of it!

As for Urick, well let's just say after reading his interviews I can see why found Jay so reliable. The man can't keep his own stories straight so I imagine he's not surprised when others can't either. Sarah Koenig never contacted me! Well except for that one time when she did! Oh and they may have called me several times but I don't remember! His waxing philosophically about how Jay deserved a lawyer and Sarah is just a big old meanie for suggesting Jay didn't was really rich. Sarah never said that. She just found it shocking the prosecutor called in a favor to get the big witness for the state a lawyer. Oh and everybody lying except him!

I also don't know if Adnan is guilty or not. But I do think this case is extremely screwed up and mistakes were made.

[kostgard]

For those still following Serial, Sarah Koenig posted a brief update on their website.

The reason is the Court of Special Appeals has agreed to hear Adnan's argument for appeal in June. At the time of the podcast, Koenig said there was only an extremely slim chance this would happen, so it is a significant development.

Adnan could get a new trial out of this, or some other remedy, or nothing at all. It's still going to be a long haul.

And honestly, I don't know how he couldn't get something out of this. I've seen lawyers and law professors online who have completely obliterated the state's case. The cell phone records don't stand up, the coroner's report does not support the story Jay told in court and the State's timeline (the fixed lividity in Hae's body indicated that she was lying face down for at least 8 hours after her death. She was buried lying on her right side, so unless someone went back to her grave and moved her body and then re-buried her, the lividity didn't happen in the grave. The State's timeline was that Hae was killed between 2:30 and 3:15 and was buried between 7-9:00. That's not enough time for the fixed lividity to take place). And of course, Jay's story changed several times and changed yet again with his interview with The Intercept. And it changed in a way that seems significant to me - Adnan is serving life because he was convicted for murder one (pre-meditated murder) based in Jay's story that Adnan told him he was going to kill Hae. Well now Jay says that Adnan never told him anything that lead him believe he was going to kill Hae and that he seemed like "oh, my god, I killed her!" when he showed Jay the body. Wouldn't that indicate a lesser degree of murder? It seems that could be used to argue that the change should be knocked down a peg or two.

[kateln]

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed to send his case back to a lower court so that he can request it be reopened.

So I'm super late to join the Serial listening group, as in I started listening to it recently while running. It's fascinating, and the only thing I can say for sure is that I don't know if Adnan Syed is guilty or not, but based on what I've been hearing on the site, I don't think that the prosecution met their burden and he shouldn't/wouldn't have been convicted on the evidence without some serious shenanigans on their part.

I feel so bad for the families of everyone involved.

[prisma]

Thanks for the update, kateln!

[chonies]

Not about Serial: I heard parts of Marc Maron interviewing Terry Gross for today's Fresh Air episode. It was excellent.

[carrier76]

So glad to see we have a thread on podcasts. A lot of my job involves making maps, and podcasts are the perfect companion.

My favorite is "U Talkin' U2 To Me," Scott Aukerman and Adam Scott's bizarre U2 podcast. This one goes off the rails a lot and is fantastic. I also subscribe to "We Hate Movies" (hilarious bad movie podcast; their in depth analysis of Jingle All the Way 2 made me laugh so hard at work that someone thought I was crying), "Stuff Mom Never Told You," "Throwing Shade," and "International Waters." I dabble in "Comedy Bang Bang" and "How Did This Get Made." Yesterday I tried "Whistling in the Dark" and "Unbuttoned," the Yahoo! Style podcast. Both were enjoyable.

I do not listen to "Serial."

[kostgard]

May 20, 2015 19:37:13 GMT -4 kateln said:

The Maryland Court of Special Appeals agreed to send his case back to a lower court so that he can request it be reopened.

So I'm super late to join the Serial listening group, as in I started listening to it recently while running. It's fascinating, and the only thing I can say for sure is that I don't know if Adnan Syed is guilty or not, but based on what I've been hearing on the site, I don't think that the prosecution met their burden and he shouldn't/wouldn't have been convicted on the evidence without some serious shenanigans on their part.

I feel so bad for the families of everyone involved.

I read an analysis of this today on The Daily Beast and apparently this sort of thing is rare, and the language the court used left the door wide open for Adnan's lawyers to bring all sorts of stuff to the table, which is rarer still. Adnan should be kissing Rabia's feet for starting this whole thing when she reached out to Sarah Koenig.

And speaking of Rabia, she's doing her own podcast with two other lawyers/bloggers who became obsessed with the case and have been pulling it apart. Now, the podcast is a little rough as they aren't professionals and they are clearly Team Adnan (and some things they present I feel are a bit of a stretch), but it is fascinating to me to see further proof of how effed up this case is.

And I think that is why I still listen. I don't know if Adnan is guilty or not, but I do know that the way the case/investigation was handled was totally FUBAR. I am amazed that the state put together such a shitty case, and that someone was sent to prison for life based in evidence that made no sense and didn't actually support the story (or rather, stories) of their main witness. I want to know how and why this could happen, and I want to know what really happened (Adnan guilty or not).

ETA: Rabia also still posts about the case on her blog, and man, today she was on a tear. She was posting her response to what the state filed recently, and damn, girl! No punches are pulled. And long story short - she believes that Jay is pretty much a victim in this too, and that the police and prosecutors, under pressure from the community and the media to solve the case, just decided to focus the ex-boyfriend who comes from a religion/culture that people associate with "honor killings" and made the evidence and Jay's testimony fit the narrative they wanted.

She's stating a lot of speculation as fact, but it also isn't like she's just pulling stuff out of her bum. It's at least feasible. And if she's even half right, reminds me a lot of the West Memphis Three - horrible crime happens, police under pressure to solve it, they latch on to some kids whose only crime was being a little weird and just run with it so they could tell the community the boogiemen have been dealt with and everything is okay.

And she has a good point about the interview Jay did with The Intercept in November. The interview was arranged by Jay's lawyer - the same lawyer he had back in 1999. The same lawyer the SA (Urick) called in for him (rather than him just getting assigned a public defender). Would his lawyer allow him to talk to a journalist without coaching him on what to say? Probably not. And Urick, mere weeks after telling Serial that he couldn't talk to them because he was no longer with the SA's office and did not have permission from the Lee family to discuss the case, was apparently authorized by the SA's office and obtained permission from the Lee family to discuss the case with The Intercept? To the same journalist who talked to Jay? A journalist who also had a bug up her butt about NPR/Serial/Sarah Koenig and was therefore probably more prone to being sympathetic to them and wouldn't dig too deep into their stories?

Yeah, it's a little fishy. It's ALL a little fishy, from day one. And that's what drives me crazy about it.

[chonies]

President Obama is going to be on WTF with Marc Maron. I don't know how I feel about about this. Well, I actually do, but I feel "confused" and mostly baffled.

[kostgard]

Jun 18, 2015 17:06:59 GMT -4 chonies said:

President Obama is going to be on WTF with Marc Maron. I don't know how I feel about about this. Well, I actually do, but I feel "confused" and mostly baffled.

I saw that, and...interesting. I guess we'll see how it goes.


I also listen RuPaul's podcast he does with Michelle Visage called "What's the Tee" - it's kinda hit or miss, but it is usually entertaining. This week he interviewed Henry Rollins, and I thought it was quite good. Worth a listen.