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Serialis deep into its third season, and in many ways, its never been better.
Hows the season going so far?Things are going pretty well.
Its the first time Ive done this.
But now were getting to a place where Im realizing, Wait, its almost Thanksgiving?
Im excited for it.
And I know Sarah [Koenig] acts like shes not excited, but I think she is.
Weve been lucky to have a year and some change to work on this.
But thats just the name of the game these days, right?
How did you spend that year?
The longer we spent in Cleveland, the more we started getting past … You know more people, you dive in deeper.
Were basically laying out for you the same sort of evolution that we have.
At the end of the day, people are going to be, like, What are you saying?
It was literally, Well, Sarah cant go because shes literally not there.
A big part of my job was to embed in the courthouse.
I didnt think that was going to be case at the beginning.
I thought I was just going to gather tape thats basically the life of a stringer, you know?
And at the end of the day,Serial, delightfully, is Sarahs show.
How did moving to Cleveland work?
Did Ira Glass cover rent?[Laughs.]
And thats basically what happened: We ended up booking an Airbnb and renewed it over and over again.
It ended up working quite well.
Id never met Sarah in person before because shes usually based in Pennsylvania.
It must be a little weird to move back home to Ohio to work on a project like this.
I went to Ohio State for college and moved to Chicago after graduating.
Maybe thats why Julie was afraid I wouldnt move.
But I actually really liked being back in Ohio.
It was also hard, particularly because Ohio can be a very segregated state.
One part of town is particularly diverse or black, and the other part of town is just not.
The suburbs, especially, is really white, and everyone who runs the city is from the suburbs.
Ive gotten used to my friend groups looking a certain way.
Ive gotten used to disappearing in New York.
In a lot of different parts of Cleveland, black people and white people just do not mix.
About the vision some might have of criminality and its connection to blackness, and what that means.
All that was really, really important for my reporting.
Also, growing up there, I felt like Iknewthe people I was reporting on.
I know that dude.
Judge Gaul in episode two, I knowthat guy.
With that, I think theres definitely an outsider perspective going on.
But Im not going to lie, sometimes it was an obstacle.
An English accent because of colonialism and centuries of oppression carries a certain authoritativeness, right?
So, for some people, I was a bit of an unknown quantity.
But I also think our presence as reporters in that courthouse was different for people.
Even just the notion of an audio interview, sometimes that doesnt exist.
But I also have to say, there werent very many black reporters around the courthouse.
Youre talking about a lot of people who arent used to being interviewed about black people by black people.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
