Leah Sottile and Ryan Haas on deconstructing ‘true crime’ in podcasting and journalism

 SOTTILE: Both of us, probably me more than Ryan, bristles at that label of “true crime.” Particularly because I think it makes a lot of people ignore the work. I think if people don't like true crime, or they think true crime is just about lionizing serial killers or gazing into the abyss, then they're just going to disregard it.

So we had a lot of questions around: We do not feel that we make true crime, but how can we be sure that this show isn't seen as true crime? So what you realize pretty quickly in the show is that we directly interrogate what true crime is.

HAAS: There is a difference between what we as a society understand as true crime and journalism about crime. I think those are two distinct things. And there can be benefits to both, but I do think there is a lot of media out there that is reading Wikipedia pages about serial killers and it's like, OK, what is the benefit of both the people creating [it] and the people consuming it. What are we learning from that? I think if you're going to get into a crime and something that is tragic and has happened to a person, you should at least think a little bit about: what is the benefit of this? I think Justin St. Germain [an Oregon State University professor who teaches courses on nonfiction and true crime] puts it really well in our show and he says, “what's the benefit of this beyond your own careers?” And I think if you're being ethical, you should be asking yourself that question.

HAAS:  I think that's always our instinct. “Okay, this seems like a good idea. Let's do an interview” or “let's get some documents and look at them.” And I feel like even with this second season, after we did our first interview, we were like, “Oh yeah, there's material here, this is worth pursuing.” I think it's always hard because you don't want to overinvest in pre-reporting, but it often is that pre-reporting that's going to dictate whether something feels like there's enough there to pursue.

 SOTTILE: We do two things: We establish a timeline and a character sheet. The timeline can be an early tool that I think is good for anybody wanting to do any kind of narrative book or story or podcast where you're just literally going in and saying the order of how things happened, but critically, linking where you found that information, because anything of size, you're going to forget where the reporting came from. 

So for us, especially, a year on, you think you're going to remember where you found this one thing about some boot prints. [You won't] remember later. That's a thing that we can kind of both collaborate on as we're chipping away at the project. 

Then we start identifying who the critical people are to interview. So in the case of Season One, it was obvious we wanted to interview Jesse Johnson. We wanted to interview his legal team. We wanted to interview the police who worked on his case, and who's alive, who's available, can we find them?

HAAS:  I think we're always open to changing things if something big enough came in. But I think that is the hard thing about this type of podcasting is there is a certain point where you have to cut it off or you'll just never get it done, because you could always be gathering more reporting. That's a conversation I have with reporters all the time as an editor. You have to know when to stop. You have to know when it's time to produce a story. And that's a hard thing to do. But if you don't do it, the public never hears your story.

SOTTILE:  I think a big thing for us in all the work that we've done together is to really dig into place as character. So in the first season, we talk extensively about Salem, Oregon, as the capital and Marion County and its politics. 

But I think that this was initially exciting for me even before we got into the nitty gritty of what happened to Sarah Zuber — just understanding Rainier and Columbia County. It's just kind of a place you pass through on the way to the coast for a lot of people. So it was sort of exciting to think about understanding the culture there. 

HAAS:  It can be hard as a journalist, because sometimes you're just like, “Does anyone actually give a crap about this?” But I hear feedback all the time [from] people [who] are non-journalists, like, “Wow, it's so interesting. It's great to hear you guys talk about how you're coming to these ideas and how you're pursuing your reporting.” So it always surprises me how interesting that stuff is to people.

I don't think I'm particularly charming, but I do appreciate that people are interested in that, and it does help. It helps us because I think we can just be transparent with people and I appreciate that. I think it gives us a lot of credibility when we do reach conclusions within our stories. 

HAAS:  Leah and I are the type of journalists who are like, “Hey, we're willing to get in the muck and get dirty.” I don't need someone to transcribe my tape. I don't need someone to do all of that. I think we want to continue to do this type of work, whether that's at OPB or elsewhere or on our own. I think now is the time where journalists who are passionate about journalism should stand up, and commit to investing in that. 

I read an essay over the weekend that really resonated with me, which was like, Look, so many journalists get criticized because we want financial stability like anybody else. I think any journalist wants financial stability and the people who run a lot of media organizations are not interested in investing in that. And so we need to figure out a way to just do that on our own. The importance of journalism matters now more than ever.

I think we are at a moment where people need to understand the world around them, and I think that's what's attractive to Leah and me, covering regional journalism and local journalism here in the Northwest. People deserve to understand this place where we live. And as Leah said, we can't wait for people from the East Coast who have most of the media control to be interested. We have to do it ourselves.