Round-table Discussion

What were some of its stylistic qualities?

• Despite the dark topic, the humour used in You’re Wrong About: Kitty Genovese  is extremely helpful in moving along the conversation. Both Mike and Sarah are very quick witted and it aids in defusing the massive amount of information they’re presenting their audience with. While talking about the treatment of LGBT and other New Yorkers by the NYPD in the 50s-60s, they remain humorously enraged by the actions of the police force, strengthening their connection to the audience, while also exposing a narrative often overlooked. 
• In Serial’s, “The Alibi,” is also about a super dark topic: murder. The difference is, they don’t really use humor to make things less intense. Instead, the speaker keeps a very serious and intrigued tone throughout the entirety of the segment which aids the audience in wanting more of the story than what is being told. 
• In Every Little Thing’s “Winnie the Pooh”, the humor and topic kept the discussion light hearted while also maintaining intrigue. I really appreciated the family aspect of the origin of the topic and how the hosts always circled back to that when seeking their answers. 
• The 99%’s “Heyoon” uses an heir of mystery to tell the story of a sculpture nicknamed “Heyoon” in Southern Michigan. The podcast as a whole uses this sense of mystery to intrigue the listener so that the listener wants to know what happens in the story. 

How did it use research? 

• Both Mike and Sarah are journalists, so the way they conduct research is investigative. Their discussion uses the research they gather to make connections intuitively as the discussion is about a highly disorganized and falsified event and most substantial facts are rarely recorded accurately. They collected interviews, newspaper pieces and biographical research about Kitty Genovese to gather raw information to then turn into realistic explanations of her death. The research they do also goes beyond what is considered part of the actual case, they take historical and societal research from past research and apply it to the Kitty Genovese story. This includes their research into LGBT culture during Kitty’s life and at the time of her death, and historical treatment of LGBT New Yorkers, like Kitty. They also do research into the NYC police and political treatment of crime during Kitty’s death, which was constantly neglected due to the sensationalized role of the `bystanders”. They also do research that took into account the media’s ulterior motives reporting on a black man murdering a white woman during the 60s.They took a very human viewpoint when doing their research. They acknowledge the erasure of other non-white women being murdered by the smae man, Kitty’s lesbian identity and the real context of Kitty’s death. By acknowledging the forgotten human effects of the crime they are also able to inform the audience about what has happened because of this sensationalized story and the protections that were attempted afterwards. 
• Likewise, in Serials, “The Alibi,” the presenter adds in a lot of interviews that helps with the mystery of who killed Hae Min Lee. She started off with talking to the accused man’s friend, but after talking to him, she is torn with what to believe. She also talks to the accused murderer, Adnan Syed, to hear his side of the story, unfortunately, he doesn’t give her very accurate information, as similar to the research in, “You’re Wrong About: Kitty Genovese.” Everytime the speaker was giving research to the audience, it followed the story of what happened next, or the next piece of evidence she was getting. Although it really helped her get nowhere, she had a purpose for it all and as the audience it makes you want to keep listening to know what happens next from people who lived through this story.  
• Every Little Thing organized their research in a very logical way. Since they were discussing the age of Winnie the Pooh, they first visited a man who is a professional age guesser (lol if that’s an official occupation, I don’t know), then when he wasn’t sure they went to a bear expert to gather more information, and when they came up short they finally went to a Winnie the Pooh expert who provided the host’s with the answers they needed. Even though the bulk of this episode was research focused, it was extremely entertaining and light-hearted. I feel like most people have always wondered how old Winnie the Pooh is and the answer was right in front of us the whole time.
• “Heyoon” uses interviews and news clips, and personal testimonies as its primary form of research. Host Adam Goldman uses the interview with Peter Hayden, the property Heyoon was on, to show the creation of Heyoon and its purpose. The podcast also uses clips of audio with some of narrator Alex Goldman’s friends who also explored Heyoon in their teen years. Both forms of research were used to explain the personal side of something that was very important in several people’s lives.

How was it organized? 

• Mike and Sarah focused very heavily on Kitty Genovese’s life which makes sense, as they are trying to explain the reality of her death. Like I said before they present the story outside of the original sensationalized story and introduce Kitty, not as a metaphor for human apathy, but as a person. Because of this, alot of the podcast is focused on Kitty’s role in her own death and the surrounding context of the time, rather than the people failing to save her. The amount of pointed questions they ask each other also plays into the organization, their ability to remain humorous while still moving the story forward is aided by the constant questions the hosts ask each other. This separates the topics being discussed into sections almost like a question and answer, while also keeping the conversation sounding organic and less lecturing. 
• The speaker in, Serials, “The Alibi,” organizes her content mostly in chronological order. She takes the accuser and hears his side of the story. Hears his friend’s story, then fills in the missing pieces from other alibi’s that fit in. the entire podcast, the presenter is going from person to person trying to hear the many sides to the story to figure out if Adnan Syed is in fact, innocent. 
• Every Little Thing took a straight-forward approach to their organization. The hosts first introduced why they were discussing the topic: a family argument over the age of Winnie the Pooh. They then reached out to three experts in different fields who they believed could help them find their answer. These experts were a professional age guesser, a bear expert and a Winnie the Pooh expert. When the hosts came to a dead end in their research, they moved onto the next thing. 
• “Heyoon”  is organized to frame the story in a very personal light, as the sculpture has played a large part in many teenage coming-of-age stories in the small town of Ann Arbor. The podcast starts off with the personal testimonies, and then slowly moves into the narrator’s background, and then introduces the interviews with the structure’s co-creators, Peter Hayden and Joseph Kinnebrew.

How did it tell its story? 

• A large majority of the research and organization is formatted in such a way that Kitty’s death is not the main concept, but instead the consequences of the society in which Kitty’s life and death happened. It’s very interesting and held my attention very well because of how invested in Kitty’s life. 
• The majority of Serials, “The Alibi,” is focused around the death of Hae Min Lee and if Adnan Syed is the one who actually murdered her. In comparison to, “You’re Wrong About: Kitty Genovese,” they don’t talk too much about Hae or Adnan’s life all too much, only with what happened, trying to fill the pieces of who actually killed her. It kept me very interested the entire time and made me want to keep listening to the rest of the series. 
• Every Little Thing is very focused on the specific topic of each episode due to its length. Each episode is typically under 30 minutes so there is little to no room to deviate from the topic at hand. The episode began with the host’s hypothesis about the age of Winnie the Pooh and then from there got the opinion of experts who gave them conflicting feedback, until they found the answer in the primary source, the books by A.A. Milne. The episode was conducted in exclusively interviews which made the audience feel part of the process. 
• In the 25-minute podcast, “Heyoon” tells the story about a mysterious spaceship-like structure in southern Michigan. It uses the structure of personal testimony followed by interviews to emphasize the effect of a symbolic structure.