Serial co-founder Julie Snyder talks Bowe Bergdahl and Making a Murderer

When Serial launched in late 2014, the This American Life spinoff became an instant hit among listeners hungry to play armchair detective in the case of Adnan Syed, a Baltimore teen convicted of killing his girlfriend Hae Min Lee in 1999.

It wasn't just the true crime grittiness of the story that made the series one of iTunes' most successful podcasts ever, however. Much of that credit goes to host Sarah Koenig and Julie Snyder, her Serial co-founder and executive producer. The veteran journalists used deep reporting to reveal important evidence and craft a compelling narrative that stretched out over a dozen episodes. The result was the kind of old-fashioned radio series that left listeners impatiently waiting for the next installment, inspired countless theories and, even, led to Syed's February post-conviction hearing—the results of which could net him a new murder trial.

This season, Koenig and Snyder have brought a different type of case to listeners: The story of Bowe Bergdahl, the American soldier held for five years by the Taliban before the U.S. government negotiated for his release—and then eventually arrested for desertion.

Koenig and Snyder undertook the story after being approached by filmmaker Mark Boal (Zero Dark Thirty, The Hurt Locker), who'd recorded numerous hours of phone interviews with Bergdahl for a possible movie and knew he had something that transcended the visual medium. Berghdal's story, as related by Koenig and Snyder, is puzzling, frustrating and undeniably fascinating.

Koenig and Snyder will be front and center for “Binge-Worthy Journalism: Backstage with the Creators of Serial” on Monday, March 7, at the Mondavi Center. Snyder took a break from her busy schedule producing the show's evolving biweekly installments to discuss the challenges of reporting a story that requires an interview request with the Taliban.

What can people expect from this event?

It’s fun! Essentially, we want to talk about the process of making Serial; we had a grand vision, and we did have plans and we thought we knew exactly what were doing. Then it became clear we didn’t know what we were doing—things happened, not by design. We’ll play tape from the season one and season two stories and talk about the places where we figured stuff out [and] places we made mistakes.

Listeners know Sarah Koenig as the voice of Serial, but clearly there's a team behind the show's work. What's your role?

I’m the co-creator and executive producer, essentially my role is being the boss and I’m also Sarah’s editor. Sometimes it can be hard to explain and sometimes it’s hard to figure out who’s doing what, since both of us come from background where we were radio producers but I’m the editor to her being a reporter. My job is also talking about the direction of the show. We have another producer on staff, Dana [Chivvis], and then we have the website and social media so I’m also in charge of that.

How many hours go into a single episode?

I feel like before when we were doing This American Life, when we were doing 40-minute stories, that was easier to answer. The first season took about a year and that was 12 episodes [with each taking] a total of nine to 12 hours. This season I would say it’s been not fully a year because we’ve partnered with the screenwriter Mark Boal and he’s already done a lot of the reporting and research.

You and Sarah were originally thinking of another story for Serial's second season, right?

Oh my gosh, yes. We’d pretty much started [that story] in June and we were still in the process [of working on it]. We’d been working on a couple of different stories, then there was one in particular that we were narrowing in on, spending more time on it and then at the same time we started talking to Mark and his company Page 1. The president of his company is a former editor in chief at The New York Times Magazine and [he and Mark] really had these reporter sensibilities. They had all this tape and felt it was newsworthy—that it shouldn’t just live on a desk in a research pile for the film.

At what point then did you realize it was your next story?

Not at first, it wasn’t like, “Oh, you guys should do this,” it was just “Holy shit! Oh my god!” in terms of the story, in terms of Bowe. Frankly, I didn’t know a ton about it. I had of course read news stories and seen the video footage released by the Taliban when Bergdahl was rescued—the footage of him getting out of the pickup truck and being escorted into the helicopter. I thought, “Oh my God, that guy has a story to tell,” but I’d kind of assumed we’d hear it pretty quickly … but then there was nothing. What was shocking to me that Mark said, “We’ve been talking and have 20 hours [of tape] and he’s told me everything about the circumstances of why he wandered off and what happened during those five years of captivity. … I can’t even claim that after listening to all of the conversations that you’ll have a full understanding—it’s all packed pretty full but maybe you could just do something where it’s just these conversations and give them more room to breathe.”

The thing is, as we started doing the reporting, we kept having so many questions, it just kept going wider.

What were the challenges of reporting a case more people were familiar with and knew, at least in part, the outcome vs. the season one case?

At a certain point it just is what is, but for some things there’s more reporting we can do. For instance, there are questions we have that Bowe doesn’t have answers to: Where were you being held? Who was holding you? Why were they treating you this way? He doesn’t know and that’s where we can do all the reporting. For things we didn’t fully understand—Mark did a great job, [but] they had conversations they didn’t record. And for that kind of stuff, we’re in the position where you don’t want to speculate so it’s about making choices: Talking to his friends and family, asking Mark for his thoughts and interpretation. [Then] you put it out there and let people decide for themselves. To a certain extent Bowe is the only one who knows what was going on inside his head. These aren’t challenges—it had been reported and reported and, if anything, it makes it easier because there was some pretty terrific reporting out there and we could say, “Oh, let’s just Google that!” The challenges for us—it’s an interesting thing where a lot of times people think they know the story, but the challenge is I don’t think it’s the story you think it is. I want to break that down through some of these particulars. “You know this and you’ve heard this, but if we line it up differently …”

The Army announced it would court martial Bowe shortly after the first episode aired—did that change anything?

It didn’t and frankly I was surprised it hadn’t already happened. Everyone had honestly been waiting for it to happen. … If anything we were confused, reaching out to military experts asking why it was taking so long.

There have been some criticisms of bias in Serial's reporting—the show's use of narrative asides, for example. Do you think those critiques are unfounded or misguided?

I get it in a sense, but [the criticism] is a little broad. … It’s all in the execution. Are you telling the truth? Are you fact-checking? Are you presenting multiple points of view? … There is a standard that applies across the way, whether you’re telling it in a serial format or in a newspaper, those are always fair questions to ask. Some outlets are more responsible than others. I think we see journalism abused all the time. Think about the fact that, when it comes to a crime story or a murder story, that there are entire networks devoted to telling stories of being murdered. A lot of times I don’t like it, I think it’s gross. It seems exploitative. It doesn’t feel like it’s serving justice or that it’s doing anything other than being titillating. Then again, we’ve seen excellent stories on how we operate as a society and what we expect from the criminal system. It comes down to execution.

Did you watch Making a Murderer? Many have compared its format to Serial and also criticized what's seen as its bias.

I [didn’t]. I’ve been very busy so I’m no fun to talk to, [but] I do know the conclusion—I know people are still in prison and honestly, with all of that you want me as your audience. I’m very generous, I think it’s so hard and I know what went into making it.