True crime podcasts done right
The ones that report it out, name their sources, and leave a case better than they found.
Serial
Season one changed the format; season three, on one courthouse, is better.
Criminal
Phoebe Judge, half an hour, often no case at all: a person and a consequence.
In the Dark
Madeleine Baran’s team spent a year in one Mississippi town, and it showed.
Bear Brook
New Hampshire public radio on a cold case, and on genetic genealogy.
Dr. Death
A surgeon, a chain of hospitals passing him along, and paperwork nobody read.
Casefile True Crime
An anonymous narrator, no banter, sources read out. The template others ignore.
Crimetown
Providence, Rhode Island, where corruption was a civic habit, not one story.
S-Town
Starts as an inquiry, ends as a portrait of a man in Alabama. Chapter three turns.