Media, Manipulation, and Secret Messages: A Conversation with Jayson Blair of the Silver Linings Handbook Podcast

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[00:01:39] Enhance your every day with Viah. Content Warning. This episode contains discussion of the murder of two girls. We recently released some episodes exposing an established pipeline between members of Richard Allen's defense team and conspiracy-minded content creators.

[00:01:58] These episodes specifically outlined attempts by this group to manipulate public opinion regarding Allen himself and the case against him. Allen is, of course, accused of murdering teenagers Abigail Williams and Liberty German in Delphi, Indiana back in 2017.

[00:02:14] Public court filings indicate that Allen has made a number of incriminating statements about the murders while incarcerated. Attorneys Andrew Baldwin and Bradley Rosie are Allen's primary defense attorneys. State is led by Carroll County prosecutor Nicholas McLean and Judge Francis Gull is the judge overseeing the case.

[00:02:32] Our reports focused on messages between Kara Weineke, Allen's appellate attorney who also apparently works on briefs in the murder case. Michael Osbrook, an attorney representing Rosie and Baldwin. Bob Mada, a YouTuber and Illinois attorney who is the self-proclaimed voice of Allen and his attorneys.

[00:02:51] As well as a trio of people we'd label as internet cranks who seem to mostly rebel in far-fetched conspiracy theories. Our coverage raised questions about media, ethics and the overall state of true crime.

[00:03:04] We feel these revelations also fit into the wider context of a nexus forming between players and high-profile murder cases and so-called true crime influencers on social media. The modus operandi is simple.

[00:03:17] Figures in the case, typically defense teams, will deputize conspiracy theorists to run their talking points in an effort to control the public narrative and whip up support for their clients.

[00:03:29] We spoke with our friend Jason Blair to unpack and contextualize some of these recent happenings within the wider true crime space. He's someone we always turn to when we're looking for insights on the true crime landscape. My name is Anya Kane, I'm a journalist.

[00:03:46] And I'm Kevin Greenlee, I'm an attorney. And this is The Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're The Murder Sheet.

[00:03:59] And this is Media, Manipulation and Secret Messages, a conversation with Jason Blair of the Silver Linings Handbook podcast. So Jason, thank you so much for joining us. You're just a delight to speak to. We actually scheduled a talk with you a couple of weeks ago.

[00:05:01] And then right before the talk was scheduled, we said, Jason, there's something interesting coming out. Maybe we should talk about it later. The thing that I refer to was the release of a bunch of these messages between people associated with the defense team, some internet cranks, prominent YouTuber.

[00:05:20] So what did you make up all of that? So I would say going back to last year, there were some early signs that the defense team in the Delphi case was working with some of these people that you call internet cranks.

[00:05:39] I just think some unwell true crime enthusiasts, really truly, to dig up information. But I think what surprised me about the most recent messages that you got out, it was just so absolutely clear and listening to them that both creators, lawyers affiliated with the Allen team,

[00:06:01] and some of these people who are unwell true crime enthusiasts are truly collaborating like a political campaign together. I think that piece of it surprised me.

[00:06:13] On a more personal level, I think some of the people who are included in it, who are in those messages had said to me when Courtney Parsons attacked me last year and said that I should die.

[00:06:29] That they didn't really know them, Courtney and Angela, they weren't really affiliated with them. Meanwhile, it became very clear to me that that was not the case. I think on a personal level, that was surprising. And then just general level, I was surprised by the opposition research campaign.

[00:06:50] And I think one of the things that bothered me the most is a listener to creators. I really am a believer that true crime podcasts can be a lot of different things. They can be entertainment, they can be advocacy, they can be analytical, they can be journalistic.

[00:07:08] But I think it's really important, and some are hybrids, but I think it's really important to disclose to your audience what you are. I have an interview based podcast. I pick guests that are aligned with things that I'm interested in.

[00:07:25] Part of the ethos of my podcast is it's a lot like journalism where it's focused on the truth. I think if we found out all of a sudden that I was secretly running an agenda for something, whether I believed in it or not,

[00:07:39] I think it would be a betrayal to my listeners. And I think that was one of the things that was also most surprising to me. Absolutely. What does it say to you about this moment in true crime where you do have people affiliated with an actual defense team

[00:07:56] in a high-profile case, even caring about what random people on the internet think and collaborating with them to this extent? Well, so I think it's actually an extension of something that started a long time ago. I think you can go back to 2004 and the Moore & Murray case,

[00:08:17] which is sort of the first true crime case of the social media age. And then I think you can also look to serial and Adnan Said and the aftermath of that post-serial where the lines between being a creator and being an advocate and both of those cases got,

[00:08:36] post, both of those situations got very, very, very blurred. And I think over time it's very clear defense attorneys have seen and appellate attorneys have seen the benefit of having this intense media attention. Same thing with Steven Avery's case.

[00:08:55] So I think they've seen the benefit both on appeals and now in trials before pedigrees. They see the benefit of having intense media coverage. And I think Karawineke really, really captured it. The appellate attorney for Richard Allen before the Indiana Supreme Court,

[00:09:17] I think she really, really captured it in her messages. All we need is one so we can poison the pool and we can utilize these creators to poison the pool. It's impossible to know whether that happened in the case of Karen Reid,

[00:09:32] the woman accused of killing a police officer, John O'Keeffe in Massachusetts. But that strategy seems to be a new defense strategy to get certain creators, Turtle Boy in that case, to be extensions of their defense team to poison the jury. Is it legal? Is it not legal?

[00:09:53] I think the thing that really bothers me about it is that this is being done in some cases under gag orders that silence the families and the families have no voice because of these gag orders.

[00:10:07] Yet the defense team and the defendant is finding a way to utilize creators. You can say manipulate them, but in this Delphi case, it certainly doesn't look like manipulation, but to utilize creators to give themselves a voice that the victims' families don't even get.

[00:10:24] And that to me is concerning. Now also the prosecution doesn't have that voice, but the victims' families losing out on that voice while the defendant and the defense team keeps it is a little bit more alarming to me.

[00:10:36] Yeah, and we've had conversations in the past that I kind of reflect upon about why something like this actually just shows how outdated gag orders are in the first place. Can you speak to some of your thoughts on that?

[00:10:49] Yeah, if you go back into the history of gag orders, you know, the Supreme Court, there are a couple cases including a case in Nebraska where the Supreme Court essentially said, okay, gag orders can be utilized to keep witnesses

[00:11:07] or the prosecution or the defendant and the defense team to keep them from sharing information that will poison the jury pool. And this is during a time where there were local newspapers in the town. Maybe there was a television station or radio station that covered it,

[00:11:26] but there were a handful of creators covering most of these cases. Occasionally you might get some national media coverage, but that didn't have much of an impact because chances are the national media newspaper was not landing in the town where the jury pool was.

[00:11:40] So it was a very effective, narrow way to protect a defendant's right to a fair trial. We live in an age right now with the barriers we no longer have as many gatekeepers.

[00:11:52] The barrier to entry to be a creator is so low and there are so many of them that you do not have a situation where your local newspaper and a handful of radio stations are going to respect the gag order and say, because they're focused on truth,

[00:12:10] we don't have any information, we're not gonna report anything. Instead, you now have YouTube creators who are doing live reports every night and they've got to fill hours sometimes, hours of time with things. And what happens is that gets filled with speculation.

[00:12:27] And so now what you've done is you've silenced law enforcement, you've silenced the victims' families, you've silenced the prosecution, you've sort of silenced the defense. So you've silenced all the people who actually have any real information about the case

[00:12:42] and you've allowed everyone who doesn't have information about the case to become the new sources and the people who speculate. And so, A, it's not effective because it's still poisoning the jury pool, but it's even worse because terrible information as opposed to accurate information is getting out.

[00:13:00] Yeah, as you said, all the responsible adults in the room, aka typically traditional media outlets, although they can make mistakes too, are not going to be pursuing things when they cannot get accurate information from credible sources.

[00:13:16] But everyone else will do it and oftentimes we've found many people who are, you know, new media creators will be content to just look over public filings in the case and analyze those. And I don't think there's really any harm in that.

[00:13:29] I think that's a way to discuss legal issues, educate people, and that's fine. But many, many people actually will not be satisfied to just talk about what's in the public realm. They will make things up. But even also to your point, like I'm a relatively savvy person.

[00:13:45] I understand a lot about the law from my experiences. I'm by no means an expert. I constantly have to rely on people to help me understand. So there's an issue of like, are you really competent to analyze it?

[00:13:57] So it's one thing when someone's analyzing something and they're making a post on Reddit and there's a discussion, but it's another thing when that same person all of a sudden is becoming a source for a YouTube channel.

[00:14:10] And I think the thing about gag orders is they were made for a world where within the media truth mattered, right? Because I as a judge giving a gag order that impacts these witnesses and you can no longer talk to the Omaha World Herald or whoever it is.

[00:14:28] The Omaha World Herald at that time is not going to print wild speculation if they can't get a source. But we live in a world right now where creators will just anoint whoever they want as an expert, regardless of whether it's the truth.

[00:14:44] Like my favorite trick is like when people will put out bad information and then they'll end it with a question as if they're not putting out bad. I don't know if it's true. I don't know if it's true or not. They're peddling bad information.

[00:14:59] And I think, I don't know, I think that we really need to explore new ways to address these issues and then throw on top of it. If you look at a situation, one of the things the Supreme Court said was gag orders have to be effective.

[00:15:14] They're only constitutional if they're affected. Well, clearly they are not effective. The jury pools are getting points.

[00:15:21] Yes. And in this case we have, I mean, in Delphi we have so many questions from listeners based on our coverage like aren't the lawyers who are working for the lawyers who are on the legal teams bound by the gag orders?

[00:15:34] People who are claiming to write briefs in the murder case and then commenting on said briefs publicly as Karahwinaki did, wouldn't they be bound by the gag orders? Our answer is they certainly don't seem to think they are.

[00:15:47] So I don't know how one could argue that the gag order in Delphi has been effective if basically that is going on. Well, and you can see the conundrum from a judge's perspective.

[00:15:59] Like they have an obligation to protect the defendant's rights to make sure that the jury pool isn't poisoned by good or whatever information coming out. But the challenge for judges like there's no templates writing a gag order. Like, you know, it's really like Goldilocks right?

[00:16:19] Like too far, not far enough, too far, not far enough. So essentially they're running into this terrible situation where they need to protect rights but don't have the right tools anymore. It's almost impossible to land a gag order that's going to be effective.

[00:16:37] You know, I think ultimately there's going to be a backlash because you've essentially not just silence the victims' families, but you've silenced every credible source and you've left it to the wolves basically. So true. Do you see a solution for this scenario?

[00:16:56] I guess specifically with gag orders is there a new paradigm that maybe in the future we can hope judges will follow to avoid these situations? Well, I think the lawyers to me are relatively easy.

[00:17:08] Right? Like the lawyers and this has more of a challenge to do with the legal profession will have to change. Lawyers have professional rules of conduct that they're supposed to follow. Right? Those professional rules of conduct cover most of these issues.

[00:17:22] It's just that bar associations do not enforce them. So those rules are a great model and I don't know whether you implement those rules through the judicial system or lawyers finally become willing to police themselves like certain other professions.

[00:17:38] I'm not going to say doctors, but nurses certainly do it. So there's that aspect and there's that element of it that I think could be a more effective way to hold attorneys accountable, essentially for the truth.

[00:17:55] To me, I think that for witnesses it gets a little bit more complicated, right? And for witnesses and victims, family members, it becomes definitely way more complicated.

[00:18:08] But what we've seen though, ultimately in those cases where people are free to talk, they often get it out and they stop talking.

[00:18:18] So I'm not sure whether they do much good and not having one does that much harm if attorneys are held to their rules of professional conduct. Yeah, well said.

[00:18:29] I mean, I could imagine in a case where on either side of witnesses is important or family members are important. Whatever side is relying on those witnesses explaining, please do not go out and do a tour on YouTube.

[00:18:44] In most cases, I think would resonate with people who don't want to do harm to their specific side, whether they're prosecution witness or a defense witness.

[00:18:53] Yeah, and one of the most obnoxious things in those messages that you released was the comment that was made about how Becky Patty and Libby Germain's family was hiding behind the gag order. I bet they would love to speak.

[00:19:09] I bet they would love to speak on that particular topic too. I think these families, one travesty of this has been that for the most part since 2017 they have not had a voice.

[00:19:20] Yes, they have had some opportunities to talk during that time, but certainly since 2022 they have not had a voice. Like we have to on the outside interpret what they want. We have to interpret what's in their best interest.

[00:19:33] Other people have to fight their battles for them without really being able to communicate with them at all. And to me that's it's just a shame and I'm not sure what purpose it serves.

[00:19:45] I doubt they have any real significant evidence in the case other than proof of life. And so I don't see why people like that need to be gagged. Yeah, well said.

[00:19:58] Yeah, it was really, I struck me in the messages and we kind of go into this a little bit more in future coverage. But it really struck me that not only is Libby's family being maligned in these messages,

[00:20:10] in fact just random people, random other creators who are just perceived as being sympathetic to these families that lost children are also being attacked and called things like virtue signaling and sort of it just strikes me in this case in particular that there is such an aggressive tone

[00:20:31] because I feel like it's very possible to strike a balance between saying this is a tragedy that happened but I don't believe Richard Allen did it. You know, and maybe not going on the attack.

[00:20:42] What do you make of that tendency though where it is kind of like there's a lot of blame that gets thrown, you know, even at victim's families? So this is one of the reasons why I love my podcast. It's all about conversations.

[00:20:57] And I really think like I've had people in my podcast that like are so like me that it knocks me over. I've had people I completely disagree with on a lot of different things, but we're able to find the commonality.

[00:21:12] I've had, you know, I don't know what it's like to be Indigenous, but I've had a ton of Indigenous families on to talk about what it's like to be Indigenous and I've learned and I've grown as a human being.

[00:21:24] And I think in that example, I'm probably better to Indigenous people because of that. And so I think being able to truly have conversations with people to value, to be open to their ideas, to value their ideas regardless of whether they agree with you or not.

[00:21:43] You know, a lot of the people in my podcast agree with me on a lot of things but I have something to learn from them.

[00:21:48] A lot of them disagree with me on certain things and you can see in my episodes that my views are evolving based on what I'm learning. And I think we've lost the ability to have those conversations and I think that's a broader thing in society.

[00:22:06] And I think it plays out in true crime, it plays out in other places.

[00:22:10] Now, I will also add to that like some of its personalities, some people don't want to have those conversations like they make their money off of beating up on other people and they're not really interested in it.

[00:22:23] So for some people it's not a capacity thing, but I think it's really easy for listeners to fall into it because in so many other spaces in our lives we are not having conversations.

[00:22:35] You know, whether it's religious, whether it's political, whether it's social or my local school board, we're just not having reasonable conversations with people and I can just remember a time.

[00:22:49] I love to tell the story. So when I was in the Boston Globe, Washington Bureau, it was like first or second day there was an editor David Shreiman who eventually led one of the Pittsburgh papers but he was a longtime Washington bureau chief.

[00:23:04] And he came into my office and he's like three The New York Times on the desk. And he's like I want you to read, you know, the front page that editorial page through the Washington Post front page editorial page Wall Street Journal.

[00:23:15] I want you to read the editorial page. These are all very different papers, certainly on their editorial pages.

[00:23:20] And then he said, I know you're going to read Newsweek US News World Report in time, but I also want you to read Reason and the weekly standard, completely different views of the world for all of them, because he wanted me to see all the different perspectives.

[00:23:37] And I think that was really cool. I was going to be a more well rounded reporter and more well rounded person if I absorbed an assortment of different perspectives.

[00:23:48] And I think we just don't see the gift in that we immediately go to defensive reactions and I certainly I understand that right, you know, if someone says something racist or someone says something anti LGBTQ or if somebody says something.

[00:24:06] Attacking Indigenous people, my gut initial reaction is to just smack them back in the face. But if you go and you look at my Twitter feed what you'll find is I just open up the debate.

[00:24:17] Right. I educate, I give them information that counters their perspective of the point of view. And sometimes these threads that start out as very acrimonious when you get to the bottom of that I've got one on my on my current thread right now over missing and murdered Indigenous people.

[00:24:34] But you get to the bottom of the thread and we're like starting to see each other's perspectives. And that's what I think we really need to do.

[00:24:42] And my friends often say Jason, why are you getting into this fight? And I'm getting into those fights and those conversations because I know if we pound it and pound it and pound it enough and learn from each other, we're going to get somewhere better.

[00:24:54] There's no good in just throwing mud. We are the friends in that scenario because I think you have a lot more patience than we ever would.

[00:25:04] So we really commend you on that and sort of trying to start dialogues with people who may disagree, even if their opinions are kind of like, you know, might be horrifying or kind of like, where is this person coming from?

[00:25:17] You know the line for me that and I'm sure this is similar to line for you. It's good faith. As long as the person's having the conversation in good faith, it's worth it to have it like some people start off really hot and really mean.

[00:25:33] And then, you know, you can go back and forth with them and you can figure out whether they're in good faith. I'll end the conversation if I no longer think the person is operating in good faith.

[00:25:43] If I'm saying, look, the sky is blue and they're saying no, it's burnt red. Have you had your eyes checked? Oh, your eyes are okay? Okay. All right. I'll end the conversation. But as long as they come to me in good faith, I'm willing to have a conversation.

[00:25:58] And what I found over the last year or so is that there are probably, and we've talked about this before privately, I can be a little naive about people sometimes.

[00:26:10] You know, everybody walks in the door with a glass, not just half full with me all the way full at the top of it. And I think I've been really naive about the intentions of some creators, some lawyers, some others in the space.

[00:26:28] I guess that's been, it's been sad for me actually. It's really been sad for me and I think it's been sad for some of the other creators in the space.

[00:26:40] I guess the upside is, and I think Alice from The Prosecutors made this point, you guys may have been on. It's so confusing.

[00:26:48] She may have also said it on my podcast. But she made a comment about how you don't figure out how a clock works from looking at one that's working. You figure out how a clock works from looking at a broken one.

[00:27:05] And I think spending the last year looking at a broken one has really, really, really, really helped me understand a better way.

[00:27:15] And you can see it in some of these recent instances, whether it's Turbo Boy or some of these other creators who have gotten mixed up in this. Lister's are voting with their ears and their eyeballs in ways I didn't think they would be.

[00:27:30] You know, I happen to look at some of the charts for some of the creators and the numbers for some of the creators and Lister's are voting.

[00:27:38] You know, I was on a recent episode. It's actually the episode that came out this week with woman named Vangie Randall Shorty. And she is a Navajo woman who lives out in Arizona.

[00:27:50] And she was telling me in the episode that 96 missing natives on the reservation, I think it's like 130,000, 140,000 people. And I remember saying to her that if there were that many cats missing in Greenwich, Connecticut, it would be a front page New York Times story.

[00:28:09] And one of the things I think in moments, I don't know, I don't even know how to fully capture it. But in moments like these when we're spending time on stories like this, you know, I had said to her that it's not just the creators.

[00:28:33] The creators are not the only problem. The reason why the cats are on the front page of the New York Times and the 96 missing Navajo or not is because the New York Times or sorry, I don't mean to beat up on the New York Times.

[00:28:47] Whoever the newspaper is knows that that's what its readers want. So we as readers, listeners, viewers have a way to send a message to the creators who are misbehaving that no, we don't want that.

[00:29:04] And we want to hear more about Vangie's son, Zach, and or we want to hear more about native Frank whose father Monty was on and she went missing and she was murdered. We vote with our eyeballs and we vote with our ears.

[00:29:21] And I think that is going to be the key to getting in my mind, the bright side of true true crime really out there. Well said.

[00:29:33] I remember when I was at insider on the business beat, the story that I love to do and that I really felt were impactful were the ones about conditions faced by retail workers. You know, especially when they were suffering from low pay or negative working conditions.

[00:29:51] Those are things I wanted to always dig into. And my editors were very supportive of those and oftentimes I worked on teams where everyone wanted to do those. But there's always that implicit, you know, you also have to feed the beast.

[00:30:05] You also have to keep the lights on and that means doing stuff that might be fun or kind of consumer friendly or interesting tips. And, you know, I'm not saying it's worthless but it's certainly a lot less in depth than I think impactful.

[00:30:20] I think there's also an advantage though because sometimes giving people what they want like, you know, they may want the McDonald's. But that when you're actually offering the steak in the next episode, it has an opportunity to help acquaint them to that.

[00:30:38] I don't know if McDonald's and steak are the best example. But so if you look at all of these cases like I think most creators, even very good creators are doing some cases because they're popular. But that's bringing us over to other really important cases.

[00:30:58] A great example for me is the Long Island serial killer case. There is a lot of like dehumanizing coverage. There's a lot of like serial killer worship coverage on that.

[00:31:11] But on the other hand, like you've got victims like in the book Lost Girls and the work of Catch List. You know, you've got victims who are being honored in that story.

[00:31:25] You've got the map that's been built of missing people all over the country that came out of that. Julia Callie of the console, the former FBI profiler and I are planning on doing an episode on a gay man, 36 year old gay man, Phil DiMartino. He got no coverage.

[00:31:45] He was loved by the people around him. You know, we're able to make connections. Hopefully we'll have a conversation with Othrion about that case. There are a lot of beautiful things going on in true crime after my conversation with Kristen Middleton at Othrion.

[00:32:02] They are handing me a bunch of cases of marginalized victims to get podcasters to sponsor and to promote on their social media. And I'll probably be asking you guys to do it and talk about a little bit in their episodes. So there are these beautiful things.

[00:32:18] I had Gabby Petito's parents on, well, these episodes haven't come out yet, but you know, Gabby Petito's parents, Gemma Nicole Schmidt, you know, they brought Vangie to CrimeCon. That's how I met her.

[00:32:32] They brought another woman named Darlene Gomez whose friend Melissa Montoya was killed on an Apache reservation in Arizona. Guess what happened after CrimeCon? For the first time in 23 years, the FBI moved forward on Melissa's case. And the first time in three years they moved forward on Zach's case.

[00:32:51] That is the good side of true crime. That is the good side of what we're doing. And even in Gabby Petito's case, you know, they found all those bodies. I think they found nine bodies in the middle of that and got clues about the case through SLU.

[00:33:07] There is a bright and beautiful and amazing thing that true crime can do to make the world a better place. And I think we as listeners need to vote with our eyeballs and our ears to the creators and the foundations

[00:33:22] and other people along those lines who are doing those good things. You didn't think I would turn it around to the bright side? I love that you did though because it is a reminder why we do this

[00:33:33] because sometimes when you see people getting harassed, victims families getting harassed, just horrible mud slinging going on, it can sometimes feel like, what are we doing here? But those are reminders to me. True crime stories are human stories. They tell us about what ills our society is facing.

[00:33:52] They tell us about people who were robbed of their lives too soon. How can we memorialize them? There's so much opportunity for good. It just needs to be covered with respect and honesty, I think, or the foundations coming to a case with respect.

[00:34:09] Regardless of whether you're coming to it with your own perspective or your own internal biases, that's fine. But if you're coming to it with respect, compassion and a sense of like, I need to be honest with my audience.

[00:34:21] And those are all, I think, the ingredients for a great foundation. All of our life experiences, our personalities, our biases, I mean, our values, they all lead to bias. But I think we need to be conscious of what our biases are, right?

[00:34:39] Certain things about my personality or certain things about my values are going to affect. And if I'm aware of those things, I can calibrate any coverage I do or conversations I have based on that.

[00:34:54] And I think being honest with people about what those might be, you know, we are in an industry that has no professional association. There's no creator accountability board that's going to come down and find us or ban our YouTube channel, although I wish. That would be nice.

[00:35:14] But job application into YouTube. But there's a important thing from history, like who held the yellow journalists accountable? The other journalists. Who's holding the creators who are off the rails accountable? The other creators.

[00:35:34] And now the listeners can follow us because if we as the creators give listeners honest information that I think exposes some of the problems we're going to face. With some other creators, even if it's not creators we're competing against, right?

[00:35:52] And this isn't a matter of jealousy or competition. It's a matter of truth, right? Putting truth in front of the listeners so they can make an informed choice. I know that there are probably some that criticize you guys for publishing the messages.

[00:36:07] Some of that criticism is going to be everybody's bloody nightmares to have your private messages posted the way I've discussed it with people.

[00:36:15] I've said simply if you put yourself in the arena, your public messages are private game and you know, if you really want to hide them, you signal man. Or yes I do.

[00:36:29] So, you know, but I think, I think another potential criticism, although I haven't really heard this one. This is criticism of this idea that creators picking on creators because of some competitive thing.

[00:36:46] And I don't think that's what it is having had relationships with many of the creators who have jumped on some of the problems that exist or some of the absurdities exist.

[00:36:58] I really think it comes down to a clearer sense of right and wrong and something being more important. And it reminds me of my beloved New York Times, right? It was a trust. The ox and the Soulsburgers family had a trust.

[00:37:13] There were so many things that they could do to have made more money that they chose not to do because the truth was more important to them. And you know, I admire what you guys have done. I admire the things Brett Nalis have done.

[00:37:28] I admire some of the things that have been done by people I don't even admire. Yeah. You know, so it's what we got for that. I wanted to ask you something kind of unpack this a little bit more.

[00:37:41] Do you feel currently that creators in the true crime space are actually doing an effective job of policing our own? Because I'm going to tell you, I want to go off.

[00:37:51] I don't. I think we're, I think there is a small group of people that consistently have to come in and sort of like say this is a mess. And I think a lot of people. The true crime of Avengers.

[00:38:03] Right. The true crime of Avengers. Like, you know, like, guys, what are we doing here? And it's like, it's like, I mean, to me and then, then, then we're just the, you know, the scolds who are yelling about things.

[00:38:14] I think a lot of people, whether through inertia or through, you know, it's not fun to actually have to go out and criticize people. It's not something that I think Kevin and I personally enjoyed doing. I think we would rather be looking into a case.

[00:38:30] It's just that when we feel something rises to the level of affecting a case, it's news for us and we feel we need to say something.

[00:38:38] Yeah, I kind of tend to see a lot of people who seem to be reluctant to criticize people who they are friendly with or who, you know, they might perceive as larger or more powerful than them in this space.

[00:38:48] And I kind of see it as a place where a lot of people look the other way about a lot of red flags. Curious, like, do you have a different perception? What's been your sort of thought on that? I do think power is a part of it.

[00:38:58] You've certainly seen, I don't know if you're familiar with the Madonna Humphrey case, Deep Dark Secrets podcast. The pretend podcast by Javier Liva has been doing a long investigation into that not to get too far in the rabbit hole. But you'll see creators rise up at times, right?

[00:39:19] And I think even against some big creators, I think power is a part of it. But I actually think conflict avoidance is a big part of it. We go to the same conventions together. We get advice from each other on what equipment to buy.

[00:39:35] We meet each other's families, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So on and so off. But I do think that even among my friends, and I recognize that this part of my personality, like if you look at my psychological testing,

[00:39:51] let's just put it this way, 78 out of 100 people are more sensitive inner personally. Sensitive than I am. So I don't mind conflict. It truly doesn't bother me.

[00:40:00] But I feel like if my friend is misstepping, I have even more responsibility to tell them before it spends out of control. But what I found is that a lot of people within the true crime space will hold their tongue even when they're just as concerned.

[00:40:18] They will virtually signal about victims as their friends are driving over victims' faces. And it's just the Jason Blair world. There is no Switzerland on some topics. I don't believe. You know, I'm not a George W. Bush fan, although he was a funny man.

[00:40:36] But I do think he was right on some of these issues. You're either with us or against us because being Switzerland on issues of ethics is to me being on your choosing. You're making a choice. And I, you know, I don't know that everyone does it publicly.

[00:40:54] Some people's role is to do it privately. You know, I can't say that. But there is no Switzerland here.

[00:41:00] I agree, especially as you mentioned, you know, when you look at the annals of things like journalism, oftentimes community self-policing is very important to ensuring that things don't go off the rails. I think we've seen some people definitely step up to the plate on that.

[00:41:16] But I can say for me as a creator, I would want people I'm friendly within the space or people who I respect in the space that they felt I was doing something wrong to say, hey, you know,

[00:41:29] I mean, I can tell you what I would do if all of a sudden I thought you guys were doing something that was wrong. I would privately go to you first. That would be my first step. How hard is that? Right. Like, here's the text message.

[00:41:42] Hey, can we have a call? I mean, like, pick whichever version of it. And I think with the vast majority of people, because I, again, this might be my naivety, but I think most people have relatively good intent.

[00:41:55] I think sometimes that conversation early in the process can help derail bigger problems or knock them off tracks. Because what I think happens over time is just like any profession, people start to skirt closer to the line, skirt closer to the line, then they cross the line.

[00:42:17] And then all of a sudden the heuristics kick in where, you know, we've escalated our commitment in a certain direction and it's harder to see how wrong it is.

[00:42:27] Like, if we can get to people a little bit earlier and frankly that's, I would hope you did the same thing to me if you listen to my episodes and you were like, this is not. What is he doing here? No. Yeah, yeah.

[00:42:41] And, you know, so I think getting in early and doing some of those things, but it also begs the question, right? Do people really care? Like, I hear the words, but do they really care?

[00:42:53] I mean, I've personally been disappointed by several instances among people who are in my circle who have not stood up for what they privately or publicly say when confronted with someone within their midst doing it wrong. Yeah.

[00:43:17] I guess it really is difficult to stand up sometimes and potentially take those slings and arrows.

[00:43:24] I just agree that it's very important, especially because these stories we tell are so sensitive and so we're being trusted in some cases with the tale of the worst moments in someone's lives.

[00:43:40] And after a half hour podcast or an hour podcast, we can move on, but these people still have to deal with the ramifications of this. And so, yeah. Think about it in another way. I as a creator do not have a giant staff. There's no quality assurance.

[00:43:58] There's no standards editor. There's no editors who are going through my work. If my friends in the community and my listeners do not give me the feedback when I'm off track, it's actually harmful to me. Like the loving thing would be to give me that feedback.

[00:44:15] And so like if you really care, tell me what I'm doing. Yeah, I agree. We certainly really appreciate that sort of feedback. And there's certainly been many, many times when we've taken it and I think our coverage has really improved as a result. Yes.

[00:44:34] It is helpful and especially from peers as well. I think when things are gone to the point where maybe public statements are needed, I would love to see more true crime creators be a little bit more backing up what they're saying.

[00:44:49] I mean, I don't know how you can claim to be centering victims' voices but then okay with certain behavior just because you happen to be friendly with somebody. I think that's hypocrisy. Yeah. I think the audience deserves better.

[00:45:06] I think the families and the victims at the center of the cases we cover deserve a lot better too because that doesn't live up to that.

[00:45:12] And I also think like, you know, yeah, we have nobody other than ourselves but I also think sometimes spending a little bit more time with some of the people who are touched by the cases.

[00:45:24] I don't just mean the victims' families but even the defendants, even the people who are fighting the battles and meeting judges and finding out what it's like listening to prosecutors, listening to defense attorneys, but especially listening to those victims' families and the defendants.

[00:45:45] I think if you really understood the impact of even slightly bad coverage on people, if you sat in the room with them, if you hopped on the Zoom call with them,

[00:45:57] I mean, I'm kind of blessed because I'm a one-on-one interview based podcast so I'm sitting here and I'm listening to these people. And when I had Bruce Mainland on, who's Brianna's father, he did something that no one else did. We had this long prep call before.

[00:46:16] I was so grateful for it before we recorded because I think I got a view because it was just completely off the record and we weren't recording.

[00:46:27] I think I got a view into what it's like to be in his shoes and to walk, I don't know, man, what is it, 20 plus years in his shoes?

[00:46:37] That helped me have a level of sensitivity that went beyond my intentions and I could only have through getting that view. And it's probably made every interview I've had, regardless of what the topic is, whether I'm talking to a ghost hunter or a victim's family,

[00:46:56] it's probably made every interview better. Earlier on in the conversation, I detected a note of hope about where things are going in true crime, dare I say. And I'm curious, where do you think things are going in the wider context of true crime?

[00:47:11] Are you seeing a backlash from viewers and consumers and listeners against some of this sort of what I would characterize as bad behavior at least personally?

[00:47:21] Or are we seeing a cleavening of like on one side you have people who are interested in ethics, on the other side you have something else entirely, kind of almost two separate true crime communities. Like how do you see this all going? Maybe two or three.

[00:47:36] I don't know. I mean, I see some positive signs but you know, I have a narrow view. But certainly recent things I've seen listeners do have been to me super positive. There have been some here, as Taylor Swift put it, I think the trash always takes itself out.

[00:47:58] Jason Blair Swiftie confirmed. I mean, look, I think people with poor morals or ethics burn enough bridges eventually that they, you know, they, well, first of all, they lose the support among other creators. Now, I'm not saying they'll beat them out.

[00:48:20] Other creators beat them over the head but they back away slowly. They stop doing collaborations. They distance themselves. And I think the listeners over time either through, I think it's a slower burn if they're just listening and then comparing it to what else they can find in reality.

[00:48:41] I think it's a faster burn if somebody calls them out. But I think eventually the listeners walk away. So I think to some extent holding people accountable is going to be important but just resting and relying on the idea that the trash always takes itself out.

[00:48:59] Yeah, it gives me hope. Some of the things I've seen from listeners in recent days where I do think a lot of people want the truth. They want the facts. They want maybe some opinion but opinion that they can trust is coming from an authentic place.

[00:49:14] And I think- It's based on facts. I think I've been really hardened by that. I tend to be a proud, weird mom about our audience because I feel like they're really smart and they're always sending us these great emails and we're having conversations just behind the scenes.

[00:49:31] When people who may not even have a legal background or law enforcement background or any sort of background that touches upon this space but they know what they see and they're able to analyze it and they have some great insights.

[00:49:45] And so I always feel like one thing I go back to when I feel like I'm feeling kind of depressed about the state of true crime is just that look at your audience and look at what seems to resonate with them.

[00:50:01] And I feel very inspired by them and inspired to kind of try to live up to what their standards are and what they expect and what they want from true crime creators.

[00:50:12] Well, and here's an experience for me from Crimecon this year, certainly the year before but definitely this year. I met plenty of people who don't listen to any podcast that I listen to, don't listen to my podcast.

[00:50:24] I'm not purely a true crime podcast so I also get exposed to other audiences but here's what I'll tell you about the people that I sat in the room with. People care, like the listeners care.

[00:50:36] The room filled with listeners in Crimecon when we went to the different seminars or when we were on podcast or they call it now creator row. Those people care. That's why they're there, right?

[00:50:55] And the sad part is then you contrast that to the people who create in true crime and the percentage of people who care is smaller than the audience because I could sit in those rooms.

[00:51:12] If Crimecon were every day and I got to hang out with listeners, I would be a happy man because those people care.

[00:51:19] And I think that's part of the reason why you're seeing that reaction, that when these people who care are seeing that questionable things are being done and going on.

[00:51:31] When someone is having the courage to give them that information, they're willing to vote with their feet and move on because these people did not get into true crime because they didn't care. Really, really well said and also matches our experience with the listeners.

[00:51:47] It's just a lot of empathy and sort of insight out there. And I'm bullish on the industry because of the listeners. I'm excited because ultimately they are not going to be the people who gravitate toward this trashy stuff.

[00:52:03] And what we've seen with a lot of creators over time is they're all able to use all this smoke and magic to build up a good audience, but eventually it falls apart and that audience flees. We've seen it many, many times.

[00:52:17] So I'm looking forward to watching it happen over and over again until it cleans up a little bit. People are sensitive to that sort of uncanny valley of content creation where it's like, it's almost right, but something's off and then eventually that something becomes pretty overt.

[00:52:32] And for our audience, doing good is so exciting for them. They love the ability to have positive impact. They love the ability to see what organizations like Awesome can do. They love the idea that marginalized victims are getting attention.

[00:52:51] They love that stuff and that stuff will be there for them, you know, and that part of it. I'm just the bright side of true crime is something that's really beautiful and amazing to me.

[00:53:04] And I think in all this muck of negativity, I think one of the most important things to do is to pay attention to that bright side because there is so it's easy to get stuck in the muck. There is so much good that's coming out of this industry.

[00:53:20] Absolutely that positivity, but also, you know, healing ability of victims and families to reclaim their voices, abilities of communities that have been marginalized to reclaim their voices.

[00:53:31] And righteous anger directed at whether it's a wrongful conviction, whether it's an unsolved case that hasn't gotten enough attention, that sort of righteous feeling that like we can work together and get more eyes on this or do what needs to be done or raise the money for DNA testing.

[00:53:49] All of that is incredibly powerful. And I so appreciate that you always kind of focus on some of the positives. It's really important for everyone to remember.

[00:53:58] When I was a senior in high school, getting ready to go to college and someone asked me why I wanted to be a journalist, I said, well, it's going to sound pretty corny, but it has the power to help people.

[00:54:10] It has the power to heal people. And as weird as it sounds, it has the power to entertain people. And by that I mean entertainment transports us from our anxieties and our worries.

[00:54:24] And I think those three things that power to heal that power to help and that power to entertain are really important for people's souls.

[00:54:33] And I think those three things will win out ultimately. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I don't know. I feel like in the battles I've fought in my life, I've yet to lose one. So I think I'm right.

[00:54:47] I love it. I hope you're right, Jason. Is there anything we didn't ask you about that you wanted to mention? Do you think it's important for people to sort of understand this wider context, this wider conversation about true crime?

[00:54:57] Yeah, and I think the most important message to listeners is to, you know, it can be framed as running away from the negative.

[00:55:08] And I would just say focus on the positive, gravitate toward the positive, gravitate toward the people, the creators, the other listeners who bring good in the world and help lead to fulfillment.

[00:55:20] Ultimately, in all reality, it's important that creators call creators out. But the people are really going to shape what this industry does, whether it does good, whether it helps marginalize victims, whether it solves cases,

[00:55:36] whether it heals people or the listeners. So use your ears, use your eyes and vote for the things that I know you guys believe in. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Jason. Always a delight to talk to you. Always nice to talk to you guys too.

[00:55:51] Thanks to Jason as always for talking with us. We really appreciate him. Check out his excellent show, The Silver Linings Handbook, wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be linking to his website and to some of the projects he mentioned in our show notes.

[00:56:07] Thanks so much for listening to The Murder Sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murdersheetatgmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime, please report it to the appropriate authorities.

[00:56:26] If you're interested in joining our Patreon, that's available at www.patreon.com. If you want to tip us a bit of money for records requests, you can do so at www.buymeacoffee.com. We very much appreciate any support.

[00:56:51] Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for The Murder Sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered, you can join the Murder Sheet discussion group on Facebook.

[00:57:09] We mostly focus our time on research and reporting, so we're not on social media much. We do try to check our email account, but we ask for patience as we often receive a lot of messages. Thanks again for listening.