True Crime dominates our feeds.

It tops podcast charts, fills our Netflix cues, and for millions of Americans, it's a favorite genre, part mystery, part courtroom drama, part cultural phenomenon.

But beneath the gripping narratives is a deeper debate. Who gets to tell

these stories whose voices are amplified and at what cost? Hello and welcome to USA Today is the

excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, June 29, 2025. Today we're taking a closer look at

the ethics behind true crime. I'm joined now by Kate Winkler-Dawson, a journalism professor at the University of Texas and a true crime author herself to unpack where true crime goes wrong and how it might finally be reckoning with its own dark side. Thanks for joining me, Kate.

Thanks for having me. What are the most

common ethical pitfalls you see in true crime media today, whether in podcast, documentaries,

or streaming series? I think sensationalizing the killer is a really, really big one. I work for

the National Center for Victims of Crime, and they say

that what they see the most, I think, is sensationalism, ignoring the victim's families, not asking

for permission to tell those stories, gratuitous detail, particularly in things like sexual assault,

murder of a child. We see a lot of that pop up.

And I think we're at a real inflection point with our audiences because my audiences are mostly

women. A lot of them are survivors. They're all advocates. And we have a lot of content creators,

on the other hand, who are not policed by anyone. So you have a lot of, I think, disrespectful content floating around there, and the listeners are quite upset about a lot of the stuff that's out there.

Kate, how do you separate accountability journalism around crime from true crime entertainment?

I think it's difficult because I hate to call it entertainment,

even though I know that that's what I think people can see it as. And I do think that there

are content creators that really do aim to get those clicks. And it doesn't really matter

whether it hurts the victim's families, whether it disrespects the

memory of these people. But I think also there is a large group of content creators, authors,

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