
08 May Infographic: Serial podcast visualized
One by one, our staff has fallen for the Serial podcast. Thursday, better known as Serial release day, divides the office between those with long enough commutes to listen and those who walk in mid-episode begging no one to drop any spoilers. Modicum is very much under the Serial spell.
Serial is hosted by Sarah Koenig, a regular producer of This American Life (Ira Glass, host of This American Life, is Editorial Advisor). They follow one story for an entire season. This inaugural season is all about a murder 15 years ago outside of Baltimore. A high school student, Hae Min Lee, is murdered, and her ex-boyfriend, Adnan Syed, is convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Beyond those facts, nearly everything else is up for debate, and in the end, it’s a story of two people, Adnan and Jay, the prosecution’s star witness, and who is telling the truth: one, the other, or neither.
During our lunchtime office debates, we struggled to keep straight all the details, and this infographic started as a wish for some visualization, a way to ground our understandings. Oddly, the process of pinning down the details led to everything becoming more and more untethered. In the end, we know both more and less than when we started which seems true to the rabbit-hole nature of the show.
We hope this may inspire you to take a look at the Serial podcast if you have not already—who knew a podcast could be binge-worthy? When you fall, at least you now have a visualization, and maybe our infographic here can help you with yours.
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