Why Do We Love True Crime?

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4.2 • 6.2K Ratings

🗓️ 10 December 2022

⏱️ 16 minutes

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Summary

If you think about Jack the Ripper or In Cold Blood, true crime stories have always fascinated us. But the groundbreaking success of the 2014 podcast Serial sparked a new interest in these sordid stories. Hundreds of true crime podcasts followed in Serial's footsteps, telling tales of the murdered and the missing and the unresolved.

Today true crime podcasts dominate weekly podcast charts. But what makes them so popular? And is that popularity problematic?

We hear from Ashley Flowers, host of the award-winning podcast Crime Junkie, who has a new work of crime fiction out, called All Good People Here, and Jane Coaston, host of the New York Times opinion podcast The Argument.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	It was an unimaginable crime.
0:03.1	There's life over the house.
0:06.1	It would become the largest criminal investigation in Ohio's history.
0:10.1	In 1977, standing was found shot to death in her car.
0:14.1	It was like, there's no way.
0:16.6	It's just no way.
0:18.2	It's just going to be.
0:19.2	This is pain Lindsay, post of Up and Vanished.
0:22.0	If you followed my journey of Up and Vanished Season 1, then you know the tragic story of
0:25.7	Terrick Rince Ted's 2005 disappearance.
0:29.4	Grizzly murders, mysterious disappearances, violent spouses, serial killers.
0:35.2	Sound grim?
0:36.2	Apparently not for millions of podcast listeners, for whom these subjects make up one of the
0:40.3	medium's most popular genres, true crime.
0:43.9	And if you are a true fan, you love listening on your morning commute, while cleaning the
0:48.1	house, walking the dog, or before you go to bed, then you're probably familiar with
0:52.4	this podcast.
0:53.7	From this American life in WB Easy Chicago, it's serial.
0:57.0	One story told week by week.
0:58.6	I'm Sarah Canig.
0:59.6	Cereal was one of the OG podcasts that helped launch the true crime, Craze, back in 2014.
1:06.0	When Sarah Canig, a former producer for the hit radio show and podcast This American Life,
	...

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