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Ms. Diab

ENG4Ub

11 December 2020

Exposing the Power of Bias in the Narration of Serial

As millions of listeners rest assured of Adnan Syed’s innocence, the world now questions

whether it is the American judicial system at fault or Sarah Koenig’s methods of executing

Serial, her 12 episode podcast. The initial case of Hae Min Lee’s disappearance escalated with

immense speed when her body was found buried in Leakin Park and a question immersed in

the minds of all of Baltimore County: “Who killed her?” Koenig’s dissection of Adnan Syed’s

case proceeds to make an allegation against the prosecutor’s reliability, claiming Syed was

wrongfully convicted of his ex-girlfriend’s murder. Sarah Keonig shows evidence of bias

throughout the entire podcast by attempting to prove Adnan’s innocence with the use of the

evidence’s presentation order, the normalization of Adnan’s suspicious behaviours and, with

the use of her “storytelling” approach to the narrative rather than a fact presenting approach.

Sarah Koenig skillfully told the story of Adnan Syed’s incarceration with incredible

persuasion, but also bias, due to the arrangement of the evidence in the episodes. She started

the series, just as anyone would, with some background information about the accused.

However, right off the bat, her representation of the young man evoked cognitive bias in

listeners, as she aimed to have them sympathize with him and perceive him as an innocent,

well rounded teenager. As Koenig described Adnan as someone with: “giant brown eyes like a
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dairy cow,” (Koenig, 2014, 1, 20:10), she proceeded to ask the audience: “Could someone who

looks like that really strangle his girlfriend?” (Koenig, 2014, 1, 20:17). This is an example of the

Halo Effect, which consists of basing our assumptions of the person off of one or more positive

traits. This method of inflicting bias using the evidence is furthermore used through the

character of Jay. As Jay’s testimony made up the majority of the prosecution's case, one would

think it is a valuable piece of information that should have been mentioned early on in the

podcast. Oddly, Sarah withheld any details regarding Jay and his testimony until episode 8 out

of 12 which is almost 70% into the podcast. The timing of this information’s presentation to the

audience was used to her advantage and successfully belittled its significance. This was done as

the audience had already developed a certain opinion of Adnan, they were given enough details

of him to feel as though they knew him personally. What they may not have realized initially is

that the information and the details which were fed to them, as previously mentioned,

manipulated their perceptions of Adnan to be positive. This resulted in the lack of reliability of

Jay and his testimony, as the profile Sarah created for the listeners of Adnan did not match the

plan he was accused of carrying out. Thus, without a doubt, whether this was intentional or not,

the order of the evidence presented by Sarah created a bias supporting Syed’s innocence.

While the order of the information may or may not have impacted the audience, the

evidence against Adnan Syed was still presented. Even so, Sarah managed to create excuses for

any of the evidence and facts which may have led to the suspicion of the accused, by

normalizing it or completely dismissing it. This was seen throughout the entirety of the podcast

as Koenig discussed Adnan’s regular teenage behaviours (Koenig, 2014). Regular teenage

behaviour was her reasoning behind both Adnan’s lack of alibi and memory of the day of Hae’s
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disappearance, and his obsessiveness around Hae, as stated by her best friend. One of the most

important suspicious acts Sarah defended was Adnan’s phone call at Jay’s house. He was

incredibly panicked due to the fact that the police would be speaking to him but, Sarah decided

to relate to her own life and justified it as a teen’s immediate reaction given his circumstances

(Koenig, 2014). This point was further proven as the majority of the people and witnesses Sarah

interviewed were Adnan’s family and friends, which one can infer would not incriminate their

loved one, Adnan, whether they knew relevant information or not. They would state: “the guy I

knew, there’s no way he could have done this.” (Koenig, 2014). At last, Sarah’s dismissive

behaviour was used against the evidence which points towards Adnan, as many relevant pieces

of evidence were dismissed due to the fact that she was not able to contradict or disprove

them, and because they did not fit her narrative. These include Summer’s clear account for the

day and for speaking to Hae, the fact that the prosecutor’s timeline was possible to be

accomplished by Adnan, his handprint found on her car, along with the fact that the Asia Mclain

alibi is irrelevant if the conversation between Summer and Hae occurred as she had described.

Hence, as proven on many occasions, relevant information and evidence were ignored to

Sarah’s benefit which clearly created a bias as we are mainly presented the Syed’s defence and

the prosecutor's negligible arguments.

Serial is among the most popular podcasts in the world and this is majoritarily due to

the entertainment methods of Sarah Koenig. Her execution of Serial is a type of literary

nonfiction that consisted of a factually accurate writing style that is told by incorporating

literary techniques. This genre was executed incredibly well by Koenig, however, when

assessing a murder case of this nature, an investigative approach is more important than an
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entertaining one which can be accomplished through non-fiction writing. As she approached

this podcast with the mindset of a storyteller, her goals of finding out the truth about Hae Min

Lee’s murder were overshadowed by the goal of entertaining and creating a successful podcast.

As an enjoyable podcast must have hooks and attempt to have an unexpected result, Koenig

put a lot of effort into proving Adnan’s innocence which in consequence, created a bias in the

viewers. Her storytelling technique was expressed as the podcast’s storyline can be broken

down into a plot graph with many unexpected twists, and cliffhangers. She maintains the

audience’s attention by stimulating their curiosity when she says things such as: “This call is

incredibly important and I will talk more about it in another episode,” (Koenig, 2014, 5, 17:35),

or: “More next week.” (Koenig, 2014, 2, 35:47). By postponing the presentation of information,

she allows for bias to occur, which deprecates their value. Her storyteller methods were

perfected as Sarah Koenig is in fact a journalist and not a detective or an investigator, which

simultaneously permits one to infer that every analysis she makes, whether of Adnan’s

reactions to certain information, of statistics, or of testimonies, are objective and

unprofessional. Even though she advised that she is not a professional, she has stated every

remark and opinion she has developed through the information learnt as though it were a fact,

meaning the audience is fed potentially false assumptions without being aware that it is simply

her opinion. When such information is stated with that extent of assurance or certainty, the

audience is manipulated into blindly believing them as they would believe facts. As a result, it is

clear that the goal of entertainment, although executed with excellence, flawed the objectivity

of the podcast which created bias carried out by Sarah Koenig.

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Nevertheless, it is not everyone that agrees with the statement that bias was not a

factor which affected the listeners of Serial. Many may argue that Sarah Koenig came onto this

podcast with the mentality that Adnan is innocent until proven guilty which has seemingly

caused her arguments to show bias. Admittedly, Deirdre, the director of the Innocence Project

clinic at the University of Virginia School, did announce that when taking on a project, they have

to begin with the premise that the accused is innocent (Koenig, 2014). In the same way, Sarah

claimed to remain objective and agreed with Deirdre’s statement which means that what

appears to be bias is in fact the lack of valid arguments that would prove Syed’s guilt.

Nevertheless, Serial’s host appears to have blown this statement out of proportion since her

initial conception of Adnan’s innocence was turned into the consistent denial of his guilt. As

previously discussed, Sarah ignored and normalized any unusual acts on Syed’s behalf and so,

she was not able to effectively analyze all of the evidence presented to conclude whether or

not the prosecution was mistaken. Rather, she chose to loyally stick by her starting premise. To

further analyze this improper mindset, Sarah had also insufficiently presented all the evidence

as she had mentioned several hours of logged conversations. Koenig stated, there were

approximately 30 hours logged between her and Adnan, and 40 hours between the prosecution

and Adnan (Koenig, 2014). These hours could have potentially presented more evidence against

Adnan that went by Koenig unnoticed or that may not have cooperated with the narrative she

created and thus, she ceased to elaborate on them. In consequence, as the host was not able to

present all the evidence and ignored some of it, she was not able to impartially come to a

verdict which created a bias in the way the podcast was written. Accordingly, while it may be
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true that Sarah attempted to judge Adnan as innocent until proven guilty, she did not properly

analyze the case to determine his role in the crime.

In sum, the tragic story of Hae Min Lee’s murder grasped millions of attentions but was

falsely presented due to Sarah Koenig’s bias. She displayed the evidence in an arguably unjust

order, belittled the importance of certain information, and stuck to her strengths by telling the

story with the purpose of entertaining, which successfully reassured her viewers of the young

man’s innocence. Although her execution of the podcast may not have been objective, her

intention was presented and created an incredibly successful podcast. At last, while it is now

undeniable that bias played a role in impacting the viewers and their opinions of the case, the

question of whether Adnan Syed committed the crime remains unanswered and is up to the

audience to impartially decide. With a second look at the case, would the millions of listeners

still remain convinced of his innocence?

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Work Cited

Koenig, Sarah. Serialpodcast.org. Chicago Public Media & Ira Glass, 2014. Web. 30 July

2015.

Lippman, Laura. “Serial: Why I Stopped Listening Long before It Ended.” The Guardian,

Guardian News and Media, 18 Dec. 2014,

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2014/dec/18/serial-podcast-murder-culture-adnan-syed.

Romig, Jennifer. “Confirmation Bias.” Listen Like a Lawyer, 8 Mar. 2017,

www.listenlikealawyer.com/tag/confirmation-bias/.

Singal, Jesse. “No, Sarah Koenig Probably Won't Be Able to Tell Who's Lying on 'Serial'.”

The Cut, The Cut, 17 Nov. 2014, www.thecut.com/2014/11/sarah-koenig-cant-tell-whos-lying-

on-serial.html.