Serial Justice

The Serial podcast was one of the first truly breakout shows. Podcasting had been fairly niche until they hit on this engrossing formula: true crime told from a journalistic and narriative point of view. Their subject, Adnan Syed, was convicted of a murder he claims he didn’t do. The evidence seemed flimsy. The more Serial dug, the more doubt many people had about the crime’s investigation. For years Syed was helped by the attention to get the case reviewed by the courts. Now, hot off the presses, the prosecutors in Baltimore have announced they are dropping all charges. Jacob Knutson…

Cornering the Cast

Last week’s brouhaha of Neil Young vs Spotify / Joe Rogan went as predicted. Spotify didn’t budge and Young made good on his threat. Joni Mitchell joined the fray and removed her music from Spotify too. But lost in all of this are two critical decisions that have undermined critical cores to podcasting. The first is exclusivity. Podcasts were never envisioned or built to be exclusive. Sure, some outlets offer podcasts as members-only perks or private ways to access shows. However, podcasting’s lifeblood is RSS. That is an open standard and without it, podcasting would not exist. Spotify decided to…