Toward a Theory of True Crime Narratives by Ian Case Punnett

Author:Ian Case Punnett
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Taylor & Francis (CAM)
Published: 2018-01-21T16:00:00+00:00

In defense of Serial’s “coffin digging” approach, Bradshaw (2014) argued that all good journalism is voyeuristic to a degree, but conceded, “Sure it might be a different kind of journalism to the type that you like. But it’s still journalism” (para. 18). Barnathan (2014) posited that it is actually Koenig’s ambivalence about the outcome that is Serial’s strength: “What makes Serial so special and so meaningful for journalism is reporter Sarah Koenig’s transparency. She takes her listeners along with her as she ponders the innocence or guilt of Adnan Syed. As she says, she has no skin in the game” (para. 2).

For Kang (2014), Koenig’s lack of “skin in the game” is compounded by the color of that skin (para. 2). Kang was uncomfortable listening in as a detached, privileged “white journalist stomps around in a cold case involving people from two distinctly separate immigrant communities,” and questioned the “parlor game” frivolity of Serial: “Koenig emerges as the subject as the show’s drama revolves not so much around the crime, but rather, her obsessions with it” (para.1). To Kang, this makes Serial reminiscent of Gang Busters and True Detective Mysteries, “an experiment in two old forms: the weekly radio crime show, and the confessional true-crime narrative, wherein the journalist plays the role of the protagonist” (para. 1).

Kang is not alone in identifying Serial as some new “highbrow” iteration of true crime: “Where true-crime was usually splashy and exploitative, Serial was thoughtful and journalistic; where the ‘characters’ were often stereotypes or caricatures, Koenig’s interviewing and research created complex figures—anchored, of course, by phone calls with convicted murderer Adnan Syed himself” (Saraiya, 2016, para. 4). Holmes (2014) dispensed with the “good journalism/bad journalism” paradigm completely, noting: “Serial is true crime, and it has the quality that true crime always has, which is not just a fascination with the way the system doesn’t work in logical ways, but also an appreciation of the way people don’t work in logical ways” (para. 2).

Meanwhile, the general acceptance of Koenig as a journalistic trailblazer appears to benefit from the public’s ignorance of true crime’s longstanding, self-conscious, meta-narrative tradition. It is difficult to imagine that anybody who read Ann Rule’s first-person quandary of her relationship with Ted Bundy in The Stranger Beside Me—or any of the various reader-driven, “we can solve this crime together” editorial poses taken by true crime magazines—could claim that Koenig “breaks new ground because she makes journalism more transparent” (Barnathan, 2014, para. 5).

Some scholars have even wondered whether a dose of “transparency” would heal the jaundiced eye through which many in the American public view journalism in the first place. “All this begs the question about how it is that transparency constitutes a new form of cultural capital in the field of journalism. How is transparency different from objectivity?” (Hellmueller, Vos, & Poepsel, 2013, p. 288). For Allen (2008), it may come down to definitions:

The ethic of transparency is easy enough to understand. It goes something like this: the news media are facing increased examination of their daily product that leads to more and more criticism.

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