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The Critic · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hey there, everybody. I'm Brian Reed. I used to be
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: a producer at the show This American Life. I also
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: hosted the podcasts The Trojan Horse Affair and S-Town. This
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: is my new show, Question Everything. As a journalist, I've
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: been trained to do just that, question the who, what, where,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: why of everything. And you know what? Journalism should be
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: included in that. With this show, I want to turn
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: the mic around on myself and my colleagues in the
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: industry to ask questions about our work, whether it's achieving
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: what it's meant to, and if it's broken or not.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: which so many people believe it is, how we might
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: fix it. I want to reexamine everything about the career
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: I thought I knew. In that spirit, for our first episode,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: we have a conversation between me and a sharp critic
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of mine, a fellow journalist who believes that a story
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I made was morally indefensible.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: You know, why do you think this is a story
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: at all? What's your answer to that criticism of mine
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and others, even questioning whether or not it's legitimate to
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: do this?
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Stick around. A heads up, this episode discusses suicide and self-harm.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: Here's how this all came about. The story this person
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: criticized was S-Town, a podcast series I hosted in 2017
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: about a man named John B. McLemore who lived in
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: rural Bibb County, Alabama. John B. was a listener to
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the radio show I worked for at the time, who
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: wrote in asking us to do a story about how
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: corrupt and decrepit his area was. He called it Shit Town.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: He and I started emailing. Eventually, our emails turned to
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: phone calls.
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: We talked a bunch. I'm in an area that just hasn't.
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: Advanced, for lack of a better word.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: I don't have to eat a Tums here. Sorry about that.
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: Is your stomach bothering you? And over time, we grew familiar.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Oh, I have constant acid reflux. You know, I've had
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: it all my life.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So why, can you tell me, why did you, you know...
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: John would tell me all these stories about how bad
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: it was in shit town. The poverty, the police abuse.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: One of the first stories he told me was of
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: a murder committed by a local rich kid who'd gotten
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: away with it. And so I investigated... only to discover
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: after about a year that hadn't actually happened. It was
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: just a rumor run wild. But while looking into the not-murder,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: I'd gotten to know John B. He was funny, outrageous, profane, brilliant.
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: For example, P and D orbitals and electron can be
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: in two places at the same time, but not in
• 2:41
  Speaker 4: the middle. And I use that as an analogy to
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: how it is now theorized. John B. was a 49-year-old
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: bachelor who lived with his elderly mother on a beautiful
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: old property in the woods. He spent his days maintaining
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: a giant hedge maze in his backyard, railing about society's miseries,
• 2:54
  Speaker 4: and performing arcane chemical processes in his workshop. Also, he
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: was a scientist.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: John was a world-renowned antiquarian clock restorer. Collectors from all
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: over came to him for his expertise. Even though John
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: rarely ventured far from his secluded home, he was engaged
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: with the wider world, felt the problems of the wider
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: world very deeply.
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: When I think about the end of my own existence,
• 3:33
  Speaker 4: I take the biggest possible picture. I don't just look
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: at myself as a 49-year-old semi-homosexual atheist living in a
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: shit town full of Baptists in Buttocksville, Alabama. I look
• 3:45
  Speaker 4: at myself as a citizen of the world.
• 3:47
  Speaker 3: I try to look at the biggest picture possible.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: On June 22nd, 2015, John killed himself. I went to
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: his funeral in Bibb County and shortly afterwards came to
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: the decision that there was still a story worth pursuing
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: about this man I'd come to know, but whose life
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: and death there were all these questions about. For instance,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: why hadn't a man as meticulous a record keeper as
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: John left a will? and what had become of the
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: wealth he'd accumulated, fixing antique clocks. So I kept reporting.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: I spent a year and a half interviewing John's friends
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: and neighbors and family, learning about his life and the
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: impact of his death on the people close to him.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: And that became S-Town. And S-Town became a phenomenon that
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed me. Don't get me wrong, I was proud of
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: the podcast. But once it came out, it took on
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: a momentum that was beyond anything I could have imagined.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: It broke records. Millions of people listened. Jimmy Fallon had
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: me on The Tonight Show. I was invited to speak
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: in cities around the world, in London, at the Sydney
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Opera House, to impart my thoughts about S-Town and journalism
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: writ large. Please welcome the executive producer and creator of S-Town,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: Brian Reid. I was a public radio producer in my
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: early 30s. The attention was cool, but also weird. And
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: it came with backlash. S-Town was a character study of sorts,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: told in seven episodes, centered on this one man, John,
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: who was an extraordinary person, but he wasn't a public figure.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: And so some writers and journalists started putting out pieces
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: wondering if, even if they enjoyed the podcast, I'd exposed
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: too much about John's life. They thought my reporting about
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: his mental health, his relationships, his experience as a queer
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: man in Alabama was too intrusive, and that John might
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: not have wanted me to do such a personal story
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: about him if he were alive. This is an NPR
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: reporter giving his thoughts about the podcast at an event.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you.
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: A lot of it made me, as a journalist, uncomfortable.
• 5:49
  Speaker 5: Like that I'm peering into something that's really not something
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: that we should be quote-unquote reporting. This is a human drama.
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: This is an incredibly well-told story. But I don't know
• 6:01
  Speaker 5: that it's like what we.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Should be doing. And here's a culture reporter for Vox.
• 6:07
  Speaker 6: The thing that makes it so amazing is also one
• 6:10
  Speaker 6: of the things that makes it so troubling to me.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: She's talking about S-Town on a radio show.
• 6:14
  Speaker 6: Maybe we didn't have a right to know any of
• 6:15
  Speaker 6: these things about this dead man who never really understood
• 6:18
  Speaker 6: that after he died, a story of his life would
• 6:21
  Speaker 6: be made and then downloaded by 40 million people.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I heard these critiques, but I was a little dismissive
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: of them, maybe a little defensive. I don't know. I
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: thought about other journalists, biographers who've written stories about people
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: after they died. Did they get this kind of criticism? Plus,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: lots of good has come out of telling John's story.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: A national exhibit of his clock restoration work. A suicide
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: prevention program that's grown to train over 10,000 people in
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: Alabama since the podcast came out. And so many listeners
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: who said they'd just been moved by John. So, except
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: when interviewers asked me about the critics. I didn't give
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: them too much thought. Then, I got sued. It was
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a group of Alabama lawyers who sued me. They argued
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: that under a new Alabama law, John B. McLemore's estate
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: was entitled to money from the podcast. They used some
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of the articles that were critical of me to make
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: their case. They even suggested in court filings that I
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: might have allowed John to kill himself so I could
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: get a story out of it and broadcast it, quote,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to the entire world to sell advertisements for mail order
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: meals and home mortgages. Two of our sponsors were Blue
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Apron and Rocket Mortgage. I had to turn over my interviews,
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: my notebooks, my phone and computer. I was deposed. There
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: were several things that were bizarre about the suit. For one,
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: the lawyers who were suing me had no personal connection
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: to John, nor did they have the support of John's family,
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: who'd actually tried to prevent the lawyers from being able
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: to do this. But perhaps weirdest of all to me
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: was that under this new law, in order to win
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: their case, the lawyers had to prove that S-Town wasn't journalism.
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: which meant that I had to prove that it was.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: Imagine trying to convince somebody that the thing you do
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: for work every day is indeed the thing that it is,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: or that you think it is. We ended up settling,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and the lawyers said in a statement that we'd acted
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: responsibly in our reporting. But during the nearly two years
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: we fought the case, I became consumed by the question,
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: what is journalism? I was like a baker wondering what
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: is bread. And that question, what is journalism, has only
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: come to feel more urgent. It occurred to me how
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: few hard and fast rules our profession has. There's no
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: qualification exam. You can go to school for it, but
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: lots of us don't. We just learn on the job,
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: and that can really vary. Behind so many of the
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: disagreements we're in the middle of as a society, the
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: confusions and fights, there's a debate about journalism. What it is,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: how it should be done, who should get to do it,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: and how we can make it better. I see it everywhere.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: and my late-night doom-scrolling on the news itself. This is
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: not journalism. This is not news.
• 9:08
  Speaker 7: You're not a journalist.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: You're a punk. I almost threw up reading it. That's
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: not journalism. He steals data. He's not a journalist.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: A few months ago, I realized that's not journalism.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: You're not doing journalism. I've been troubled by the state
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: of journalism and by how much the relationship between journalists
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: and everyone else has deteriorated. That's why I'm making this
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: new show. I want to create a space that isn't
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: filled with accusations and talking over each other, where people
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: with opposing views can hear each other out. A place
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: where journalists are able to be introspective about their own work,
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: open to criticism and self-evaluation. But how can I ask
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: other people to do that if I'm not willing to
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: do it myself? And so I've decided to do something
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: a little intimidating. I'm going to speak to someone who
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: criticized my most well-known story, questioned whether I should have
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: made it at all.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: From KKW.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: In Los Angeles and placement theory, this is Question Everything.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So here's the thing about the critics of S-Town. I
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: never actually had a conversation with any of them. To
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: be honest, headlines like S-Town is a stunning podcast, it
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: probably shouldn't have been made, struck me as a little click-baity,
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: and I was annoyed that the people who'd written these
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: hadn't at least called me for a comment beforehand. I'd
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: like to say their stories didn't bother me, but they did.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: As I've been getting ready to launch this podcast, I
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: thought a lot about the lack of trust in our
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: industry and the many differences of opinion about what good
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: journalism is. And inevitably, I thought about the debate over
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: S-Town and whether, despite its popularity, It was good journalism.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: I started rereading the criticism. One of the toughest columns
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: was by an Australian journalist named Gay Alcorn. Gay's piece
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: had run in The Guardian Australia. Under the headline, S-Town
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: never justifies its voyeurism, and that makes it morally indefensible.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: The subhead stung even more. John B. McLemore's agonies are
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: laid out for our entertainment, with scant reflection by the
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: podcast's reporter as to the ethics of what he's doing.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: There was a photo of me talking to my editor,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: with a big grin on my face. I think it
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: finally hit me, or at least I finally let myself acknowledge,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: what was underneath the more abstract discussion of journalistic ethics.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: It felt to me like the critics were suggesting that
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: maybe I wasn't a decent person, that I'd treated someone,
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: that I'd treated John, badly. Gay Alcorn's been a reporter
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: and editor for about 30 years, twice as long as me.
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: She's won major awards for her feature writing, In the
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: early 2000s, she was stationed in Washington for multiple Australian papers.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: She later became editor of one of Australia's oldest newspapers,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: The Age. The idea that such an accomplished journalist had
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: found fault with my work isn't one I was eager
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: to dwell on. But here we are. Gay and I
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: speak late on a Tuesday night, my time, early morning
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: for her the next day, over in Melbourne. We talk
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: for more than two hours. I learned as we're talking
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: that after her column ran, she had tried to get
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: an interview with me when I spoke about S-Town in Australia.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I don't remember this exactly, but I must have gotten
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the request, seen who it was, and declined. Which is
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: to say, this is a conversation seven years in the making.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised how nervous I am going into the interview. Frankly,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if it is an interview. Will
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: I be interviewing gay? Is gay interviewing me? When I
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: sat down to prepare... Instead of writing questions like I
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: normally do, I spewed out pages and pages, paragraphs of thoughts, arguments, chronicling,
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I guess, my reasons for making various decisions in S-Town.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: I asked A what she remembered about the first time
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: she listened to my podcast.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I did find it so compelling and interesting and remarkable,
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: but the more it went on, the more I thought, oh,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: this is really worrying me.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: What worried you about it?
• 13:12
  Speaker 7: There were a couple of issues.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: I mean, the first one is the obvious one, which
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: is that John came to you for a specific purpose,
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: which was to investigate a murder in Chittown, as he
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: called it.
• 13:24
  Speaker 7: That was the basis of the interviews.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: And then after he died, after he took his own life,
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: the story shifted and became about his life. And I
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: think you say at some point in the podcast that
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: I think it's a worthwhile thing to understand another human being.
• 13:42
  Speaker 7: And I do too.
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: And that's what we do. But that's different to understand
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: another human being, to do a seven-part podcast series on them,
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: revealing every intimate and sordid detail of their life when
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: they haven't given you explicit consent to doing that.
• 13:57
  Speaker 7: That's what worried me.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: And I think I said in my piece that I
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: could have forgiven you almost anything if you'd taken me
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: through the process of explaining why you thought this was
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: worthwhile to do. if you'd explained your thinking and your
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: producer's thinking about the ethics and the morality of telling
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: the story, depending on what you said, I think the
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: program is justifiable because it is worthwhile telling human stories
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: and it was a rich life of a human being.
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: But I just thought, when is he going to say,
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: why is he using this? I mean, I'm interested in
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: whether you or your producer's talked about that, as in
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: he did come to us for a different purpose.
• 14:36
  Speaker 7: But, you know, you had all these tapes.
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: Was there a discussion about the ethics of telling his
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: story when he was now dead? Yes.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, there was discussion about what do we do now?
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: Is there a story? I mean, the first thing was
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to go to the funeral. And I
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: did feel a little confused about my relationship to that.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: I think I even say this in the story, but
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: to John and to the people there. But I was
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: told come, and I wanted to come. By that point—
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: Gay's question was a straightforward one, but my answer wasn't.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I told her about how John didn't just come to
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: me about the murder. There was lots he wanted me
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: to look into. I told her how even after there
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: turned out to be no murder— I was talking to
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: John about still trying to do a different story about
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: his town, how I was making plans to come back
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: down in a few weeks to do more reporting when
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: he killed himself. What I ended up going down for
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: was John's funeral instead. And pretty quickly, people who knew
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: John were telling me about things that seemed suspicious to them.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: There was the question of a will. Was somebody hiding it?
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: There was the question of gold John had. What had
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: happened to that? Plus, I told Gaye, I found myself
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: with questions about who this man was that I'd gotten
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to know, who I felt had made an impact on
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: my life and was upset, had taken his life. So
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: that was the conversation when I came back from John's funeral.
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: I talked with my editors about this and kind of
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: what we agreed I would continue to look into. I
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: don't think we were like, this is a story and
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: we're airing it.
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: But I think I was aware of the I don't know,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: perverse or kind of morbid reality that suddenly after someone dies,
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: there was something to report on, you know? And I
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: think that is like a dark truth about our work
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: and maybe the world. But yeah, that was the process.
• 16:43
  Speaker 7: That's interesting.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: And I guess it gets trickier, and were there conversations
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: particularly about his sexuality and his abuse of himself and
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: tattoo after tattoo and his desire for pain, which I
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: found very, very confronting, and obviously it was confronting.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: What Gay's talking about here is the last chapter of S-Town,
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: where I go into detail about the end of John's
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: life and how he'd taken to getting tattooed and pierced
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: over and over for the pain.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: Were there discussions, apart from, yes, let's go on and
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: do a bit more reporting, about those particular things and
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: the ethics of revealing the most difficult and private parts
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of a person when he had not consented to that?
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: Were there discussions with your editors about those particular things? Sorry,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm interviewing you here.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely.
• 17:35
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: There's my answer as to who's interviewer and interviewee. And
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: when I re-listened to the recording of this conversation later,
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I realized how frustrating an interviewee I was. Somehow I
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: was talking a lot without answering Gay's question. Like when
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: I read your critique, honestly, it surprised me because the
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: idea that the existence of the story would be questioned,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: that wasn't something that felt controversial to me. That is
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: not to say there weren't many challenging ethical and editorial
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: decisions to make along the way about what to include,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: why and how to include them and what to do
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: in the reporting about that. So it was filled with
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: very difficult decisions. But the question of whether it would
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: be okay to even do the story in the first
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: place was surprising to me in your critique. But all
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: that is.
• 18:24
  Speaker 7: To say– I wasn't the only critique who said that.
• 18:28
  Speaker 7: I know.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: There were others who also wondered. I was surprised by it.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: Wondered whether or not– Yeah, I can see why you were,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: but wondered what's the justification for this at all, particularly
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: when he's not a public figure in any way. He
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: hasn't given you specific consent to do a story on
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: his life and particularly the most sensitive parts of his life.
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: Why do you think this is a story at all?
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: What's your answer to that criticism of mine and others,
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: even questioning whether or not it's legitimate to do this
• 18:59
  Speaker 2: to a private person? when he's not around to consent
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: or otherwise?
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: I think I and others learn important things about the
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: world and about the experience of other people from stories
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: like this. And I know that sounds like maybe a
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: little touchy-feely or something, but that is truly the belief
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: I was operating from, was I felt that I was
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: learning things That this very terrible tragedy had happened, but
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: that there was a way to make meaning out of
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: it that could be helpful and meaningful to other people.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: It may have been different, for instance, if when I
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: started calling people who John had known, if people said,
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: you really shouldn't do this. I don't think this is
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: a good idea. I cannot think of a single person
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: who said that. In fact, it was often quite the opposite.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: You know, as his professor told me from, you know,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: his college professor who'd become a lifelong friend, he said,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: I've been waiting for someone to tell the story of
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: this man, who's one of the most remarkable people I've
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: ever met.
• 19:56
  Speaker 7: Yes.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: Had that not been the case, maybe I might have
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: made a different decision.
• 20:01
  Speaker 7: That's a very good answer.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: And I understand your thinking on that. I guess, can
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: you address the issue of consent directly?
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: I mean let's take the issue of sexuality specifically because
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: I think that is really at the core of a
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: lot of your criticism and other people's criticism and reasonable questions.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: To what extent and whether to talk about his sexuality
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: was a serious thing. It just wasn't one decision. It
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: was something that happened over time and John talked to
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: me about his sexuality on the record. Had he stayed alive–
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and I'd continue doing a story. I think there would
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: have been an ongoing discussion that I had with him.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: And he may have at some point said, you know,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: I don't want you talking about my sexuality in the story.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And I cannot imagine a world in which I would
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: have said, well, tough shit. That said, we didn't have
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: a big discussion about I'm going to do a story
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: where this is in the story because I didn't know
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: that the opportunity for having that discussion, you know, would
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: go away. And so I wasn't sure when we started,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: you know, I was like, I don't know if this
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: needs to be included. I don't know if this is
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: OK to include. And my decision about it came out
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: of many months of reporting and talking to people and
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: getting a sense of is this important to the story
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: and is there public interest in this? And what effect
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: will this have on John's legacy and on his community?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: So that comes from kind of getting a sense of
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: who he was out to, who knew about his sexuality,
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: who didn't, what they said about it. If they thought
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: it was important to him, you know, if they thought
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: it was important to understanding why he died and why
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: he was depressed and decisions he made. And then a
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: really important conversation I had was with John's– so John's
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: closest living relative was his mother who has dementia. Her
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: conservator and the person who was really managing John's affairs
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: was his cousin Rita who came in from Florida. And
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: at some point I had a conversation with her. about
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: John's sexuality to kind of get a sense like, do
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: people in the family know this? How would you feel
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: about this? And I came out of that conversation comfortable
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: with the impact this would have. And that was not
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: the case with many things that we didn't include. I
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: did believe very deeply that it was important to tell
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: this man the story of this man's life and why
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: he ended it. And that story, I don't feel you
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: can tell without talking about his experience as a queer
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: man in the Deep South. And so maybe that, you know,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: that's a decision we could have made, but there was
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: no way to tell that story without including that, that
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: I could imagine that would be fair and truthful to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: the world. So that was my thinking about it.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: And yes, that episode in particular was a really powerful
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: insight in what it was like to be a gay
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: man in the South at those times. I just wish
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: you'd been a little bit more, but it sounds like
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: you didn't really have any serious ethical issues as you
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: were doing it. Once you'd made the decision to tell
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: John's story after he died, then, you know, you thought
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: that was fair enough.
• 23:12
  Speaker 7: He'd given you all these interviews.
• 23:13
  Speaker 2: It was never going to be a story really just
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: about the murder, even though the first couple of episodes
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: are about that. I wonder whether you thought there were
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: any significant ethical issues that you confronted with.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I guess there wasn't. What I'm saying is there wasn't
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: a fundamental... Once we kind of like As I began
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: to talk to people and get their participation and encouragement
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: and their understanding about the enterprise of the story, the
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: question of whether or not to do it wasn't a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: huge ethical question. It was more these kind of decisions
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: along the way.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: I guess I'm interested in whether the show got enormous
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: praise and enormous accolades, but it did get some criticism
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: along the lines of mine, I think, generally, that whether
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: or not you thought they had any validity.
• 24:02
  Speaker 7: Those critiques.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Upon revisiting it, I think there is absolutely something in
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: your piece that I can agree with. And that is
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: the overarching argument you make, which is that we should
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: have been clearer or could have been clearer and more
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: transparent about our decision-making process when we did struggle, why
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: we did make a certain decision about what to include
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: or why we did something in the story. And that
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: criticism I think is legitimate and real.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because you reveal all other things in
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: the podcast. You don't pretend you're an objective reporter. But
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: those issues you don't talk about much, and that I
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: do think was a real witness of the show.
• 24:43
  Speaker 7: Whether or not you still think the show is worthwhile.
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you call it in the piece like
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: a fake or limited transparency.
• 24:51
  Speaker 7: Indeed.
• 24:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Like I can understand that. I think that nothing would
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: have been lost by us– explaining more of our thinking
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and in fact there could have been a lot to
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: be gained like there's this one part i've always wished
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: that i'd done differently um i'm pulling it up here
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: hold on so this is in in chapter six um
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: i'm driving around with john and we get to a
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: conversation about what it's like to be gay in his
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: county This is going to sound like a ridiculous question,
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: but is there a gay scene down here?
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: Oh my God, there's no telling how many claws and
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: cases are in his tail. You turn that off and
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: I'll tell you something.
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: And this is when he tells me to turn the
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: tape recorder off.
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: Hit the kill button for.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: A second. And I write here, this is one of
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: the few times John ever asked me to turn my
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: recorder off. What that usually means is that I wouldn't
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: tell you what he said without getting his permission to
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: describe it. But there are a few reasons I'm going
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: to give you an overview of what he told me
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: in the car that day. First, since John died, two
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: other people who knew him well have told me the
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: same information on the record. Also, John was very clear
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: that he did not believe in God or an afterlife.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: So John, in his own view, is warm dirt now,
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: unaffected by this. And lastly, what John disclosed and where
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: it led me after he died helped me understand him
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: so much more. And I think trying to understand another
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: person is a worthwhile thing to do. So this is
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: a part where I've looked back and— I.
• 26:20
  Speaker 7: Think that's a big glib, Brian, to be honest.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Yes, I think it is. I think it
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: can come off that way.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: I do wonder, though, why you can talk about his
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: sexuality and being gay in the South and his yearning
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: for love that he never really found, which was also
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: very moving, without actually saying that he had an affair
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: with a married man, like a straight married man in
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: the town. I mean, that was the particular thing, I think,
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: where he said, this is off the record, I want
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: you to talk about this.
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: The specific thing was the identity of the man. So
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: the part that he– and that's another part that I
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: wish like I had written more precisely here. Okay. Specifically
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: was the identity of this person. And that has remained
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: off the record. So I didn't breach a specific request
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: to be off the record, but I understand why it's
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: not clear. And that's another part why I regret this writing.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's– I both don't think it's like
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: broad enough and deals with like the broader question. And
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: then I don't think it's precise enough and then could be,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: you know– received as you did as glib which is
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: certainly not my intention.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Um no i'm sure it wasn't your intention because it's
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: the only time you directly address it and yeah it
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: was just a little bit quick and throw away.
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah um i've always kind of had a sense like
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: i wish i could redo this part um and then
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: rereading your piece and um i think i even have
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: a yeah like bigger understanding of what i would do
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: differently Can we go back to something? I think you'd
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: asked me a question that maybe I didn't totally answer
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: or brought up a point that I didn't totally answer,
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: which is about the extent to which John consented to
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: the story or which story he consented to. Like what's
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: the specific consent you would have wanted or that you
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: feel would have been needed to do the story we
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: did in a way that wasn't so worrying?
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: Well, he couldn't give consent because he died. So that's
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: the whole question about whether the story should have been
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: done at all. He obviously consented to give you all
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: sorts of interviews where he ranted on and on and
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: on about all sorts of things, but he never consented
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: for you to do a story that would go into
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: the most private and painful and sordid details of his
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: life and his significant mental illness.
• 28:29
  Speaker 7: He never consented to that. Or tell me he did.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, he never explicitly told me he had
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: mental illness. I think he was undiagnosed, so certainly no.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: I've been in Gay's position as a reporter. You aren't
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: satisfied with the answer you're getting, so you keep asking
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: it slightly different ways in the hope of shaking loose
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: what you're looking for. I wanted to give Gay what
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: she was looking for, but I don't think I ever
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: quite did, because I still couldn't fully internalize Gay's criticism.
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: Until later, after we were done talking. Gay wasn't arguing
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't allowed to tell John's story. She was
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: posing the question of whether I should have. She was
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: saying that even if John came to us and wanted
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: me to do a story... even if he shared personal
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: information with me for it, he died in the middle
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: of the process, before I knew exactly what the story
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: would be. He killed himself while I was figuring that out,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: a week or two before I was supposed to go
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: visit him again and do more reporting. And so I
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: never was able to say to him directly, I'm going
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: to produce an in-depth portrait of your life. Is that okay?
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: And he never got to say yes or no. Gay
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: wanted to know and wished I'd said in S-Town how
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: much I'd wrestled with that. And the truth was, I hadn't.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: Not in the way Gay was picturing. I reached out
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: to my editors on S-Town to see if they'd ever
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: experienced inklings of the moral conflict Gay feels. They hadn't either.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: There was also something I was trying to get across
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: to Gay in this conversation, though. I noticed that after
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: John died, I felt my responsibilities shift. John's consent mattered.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: But I often found myself giving the needs of the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: living more weight. How would my reporting affect people who
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: are alive? How could it help or hurt them? Those
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: were the ethical questions my editors and I wrestled with most.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: It came up when Gay said this about my telling
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: of John's life.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: It was very intrusive information. And not just the things
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: that he'd told you, but of the detail of his masochism,
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I guess, or the pain and getting tattoo after tattoo
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: and being whipped. You didn't get that from him at all.
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: You got that from Tyler. And I found that really intrusive.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Tyler is Tyler Goodson, a local guy in his early
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: 20s that John had introduced me to. John had become
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: kind of a father figure to Tyler, who was estranged
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: from his own dad, a criminal. But at the end
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: of John's life, he'd recruited Tyler into some of his
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: pain rituals, asking Tyler not only to tattoo him over
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: and over, but to whip him. Clearly, John and Tyler
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: had a complex relationship. But Tyler was devastated when John died.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: He'd been with him just hours before. People believed that
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Tyler had been taking advantage of John, playing him for money,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: getting him into a dark headspace of tattoos and drinking,
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: which led to his death. But for me, Learning about
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: the pain rituals put the lie to this narrative about Tyler.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: Speaking with Tyler showed a different power dynamic between the
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: two men. John was much older than Tyler. He had money.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Tyler didn't. John was pressuring and sometimes paying Tyler to
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: inflict pain on him, even though Tyler had said he
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: wanted to stop and was no longer comfortable with it.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: People had an inaccurate or at least incomplete view of
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: Tyler and John's relationship, one that could have had implications
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: for Tyler. So I included those confronting details, as Gay
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: called them, out of a sense of journalistic fairness to Tyler.
• 32:02
  Speaker 2: Yes, and that does come across, I think, that part
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: of the series is about empathy for Tyler.
• 32:12
  Speaker 7: I think that does certainly come across.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: Did hearing Estown bring anything specific to mind when you said, like,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: it worried you or you found it confronting, an experience
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: you'd had with a subject or source or a story
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: that you'd be open to talking about?
• 32:27
  Speaker 7: You know, when I was younger, I think I was.
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: We're hungry for bylines and for our own advancement and
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: our own ego in some ways. And I love being
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: a journalist and I think it's a great profession. But
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: as I've got older, and I think a lot of
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: journalists as they get older, see the greys a little
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: bit more, particularly with private individuals, people who are Ordinary people,
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: I mean, I certainly have done stories where I've kind
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: of thought, oh, you know, did they really, particularly long
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: narrative stories, did they really understand the impact the story
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: might have on their life or their relationships to their
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: siblings or their.
• 33:06
  Speaker 7: Family and friends?
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: But I did work on a series many years ago,
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: a narrative series on a gambler. And we decided to,
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: there was a lot of gambling problems in Melbourne at
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: the time, and we decided to try to tell one
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: person's story to kind of reveal the broader issue through
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: one person's story. And it was a man who was
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: a migrant to Australia who had driven up beside the
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: casino and said, I'm going to blow the casino up.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Gay says there was a huge standoff with police. The
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: whole area by the casino was cordoned off. In the end,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a bomb in the man's car.
• 33:42
  Speaker 7: It was a hoax.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: It was a cry for help, some people might say.
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: And it turned out that he'd lost everything through gambling.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: And I told his story over, I think it was
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: a seven-part series. And I interviewed his wife and his
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: children and all sorts of people. And I remember a
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: couple of days before the story was to be published,
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: he rang me up and he said, I don't think
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I want this story out. I'm really worried about this story.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: I can't remember whether he actually said, I don't want
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: you to run it. I can't remember if he was
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: specific of that, but he was sort of, and I understand,
• 34:12
  Speaker 2: goodness me, wouldn't you be nervous, Brian, if someone wanted
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: to tell your entire life?
• 34:17
  Speaker 7: I would too.
• 34:18
  Speaker 2: And I don't know if I would agree to that,
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: to be honest. And I sort of talked to him
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: about it and tried to calm him down. But The
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: idea of pulling the story at that point was probably.
• 34:29
  Speaker 7: Not going to happen.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Do you remember at all what you said in that
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: discussion where he was worried?
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I think I sort of said, look, you know, it's
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: been very carefully done. You know, you don't come out
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: of it, you know, badly. There's a lot of empathy
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: for your situation here. It's not an attack on you
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: or a criticism of you or your family in any way.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: And I probably would have said, you know, it might
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: help others in some way, that it has a public purpose.
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: I don't know really what the fallout was for them,
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: but also I don't think that I went back to
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: him and his family enough afterwards.
• 35:11
  Speaker 7: I didn't.
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I think the impact of that story would have been
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: very large on their family and I don't think I
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: was as sensitive and empathetic as I should have been.
• 35:23
  Speaker 7: I was terribly proud of the story, do you know
• 35:25
  Speaker 7: what I mean? Yeah.
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: And I don't think that I, you know.
• 35:30
  Speaker 7: Really understood. I was a lot younger then.
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: I don't think I really understood the impact and also
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: my obligation to go back and support them as.
• 35:39
  Speaker 7: Much as I should have.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: So did you have any follow-ups?
• 35:41
  Speaker 7: Some follow-ups, but I.
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: You know, I wish I had, you know, gone and
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: saw them again. I think I called them and so on,
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: but gone and saw them and just talked it through
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: a little bit more about, okay, what did this, particularly
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: their kids, they had teenage kids.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Would following up with them, do you think that would
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: have helped them? Would it have helped you feel better?
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: What would have come of that that you regret that
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: you didn't do?
• 36:05
  Speaker 7: So if I had followed up more?
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 7: I think it could have, just being a decent person,
• 36:12
  Speaker 7: you know, like.
• 36:12
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 36:13
  Speaker 7: I'm not saying I'm not a decent person. I think
• 36:14
  Speaker 7: I am.
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: And I think I'm an ethical journalist, although I've made
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: mistakes and regret things in the past. But I think
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: to sort of say you treated me in some ways
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: a friend and you've revealed things to me that are
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: very personal and that are painful to you. and that
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: I am still here for you even after the story
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: is published, that I'm not, you know, I'm not going
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: to do that in a sort of a casual way
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: but in a substantial way and make time, you know,
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: for you to say what you think.
• 36:45
  Speaker 7: I don't know. Maybe it would have made no difference.
• 36:47
  Speaker 7: But I think it might.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: Have helped them and whether it would have helped me
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: or not, I think I'd feel better about it now.
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: I've always felt a little bit ashamed of it. I
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: think I said in a piece that, you know, ultimately
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: these stories are your stories. You know, it's not John's story.
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: It is the reporter's story and ultimately what we care
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: about most. This is what my daughter who has made
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: podcasts sort of said to me when I said I
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: was terribly worried about S-Town. She said, oh, well, that's
• 37:26
  Speaker 2: what you do. You don't really care about the people
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: you're dealing with. You care ultimately about the story. And
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: I found that a very harsh thing that she said.
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: But it was sort of true that your first obligation
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: is to do the very best story you can. And
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: people think they might think you're their friend and you're
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: not their friend. The story is ultimately the thing. And
• 37:50
  Speaker 2: that's what my daughter said to me. That's what you do, mum.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: How did it feel for her to say that to you?
• 37:56
  Speaker 7: I was so hurt.
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: I was so hurt and upset and I thought, oh,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: you know, and I thought, oh, you know, I think
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: I said in that piece that she knows me so
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: well that, you know, she's seen me do these things
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: many times. And as I say, look, I do take
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: ethics seriously and certainly as I've got older I see
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: the grey so much more than I did in my 20s.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: But ultimately people have to know that the story is
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: is that comes first and that your Brian Reads or
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: my first obligation is to the story.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: This dilemma, I definitely know. Last December, Tyler, the local
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: young man John had been close with, who I'd spent
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: a year and a half reporting on after John died,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: was shot and killed by police at his house. He
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: was 32 years old. I went to his memorial in Woodstock.
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: His family, His young kids were wracked with the shock
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: and sorrow of it. They still are. It was the
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: second funeral I'd gone to in Woodstock, Alabama. These two men,
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: Tyler and John, I knew them in a powerful way,
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: a way that's singular, I think, to someone who's documented
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: the life of another person. Knowing them had changed my
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: life for the better, and I believe it has changed others'
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: lives for the better. but my work hadn't stopped their suffering.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I wasn't at Tyler's memorial as a friend, but I
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: wasn't there as a journalist anymore either. I was just there. Um,
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: do you mind if I just see if I have
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: any questions I haven't asked you that I thought of?
• 39:41
  Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm just thinking the same thing.
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: Uh, take a minute.
• 39:43
  Speaker 7: I think we've gone through just, I think we've gone
• 39:46
  Speaker 7: through most of it.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: Um, It's funny. Even in this discussion of– or I
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: don't know. It's not funny. But I'm noting that even
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: in this discussion about the human tragedy at the heart
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: of S-Town, we're still talking about the story and the
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: reporting choices.
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: And honestly, if I really think about the real thing
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: I regret in this whole experience and that I feel
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: real guilt about is that I wasn't able to or
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: didn't do enough to stop John from killing himself. Like
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: that's the actual just human guilt that I feel and
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I felt through this whole experience separate of the story.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: But somehow we're still like talking about the storytelling decisions.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: But I feel less conflicted about what I did after
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: and much more conflicted about what I didn't do before.
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: You think you could have done something else or is
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: that sort of a general human thing to say, I
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: wish I could have done something, even though, you know,
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: you couldn't really.
• 40:48
  Speaker 7: I think it's both.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's fair. Like I wouldn't, if someone
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: else were saying this to me, I would say, don't
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: blame yourself, you know? And in fact, I have said
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: that to people and I've had that said to me.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: That said, I do think there are, you know, now
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I attended one of these trainings that they're giving in
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: Alabama for suicide prevention. There are specific things you can
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: try to do. It's QPR question, persuade, um, refer. I'd
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: wish I'd known that, you know, and had kind of
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: that training at the time. And maybe there's, you know,
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: there could have been a little more framework to how
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: I was talking to him the times he brought up
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: suicide rather than just winging it. So I think the
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: answer is kind of both, you know, but.
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Um, It's been really helpful to talk to you, Gay.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you. It's been really helpful.
• 41:40
  Speaker 7: I'm glad.
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm just curious if you think there's anything
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: I haven't, I don't know, answered, I guess.
• 41:46
  Speaker 7: I think we've gone through all of it, Brian.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: Until there's another three hours I could do.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you've allowed yourself to be stripped and, you know, oh, Brian,
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: why are you doing this to yourself?
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: That's what my wife said. She's like, you're a very
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: interesting person to submit yourself to these. I don't know.
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: I feel, you know, honestly, there's a we shouldn't be
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: afraid of this. And it's kind of my thought about
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: this show is just if we talk about this more,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: if there's more openness about the process, hopefully we build trust,
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: you know, in various directions. You know, I don't know.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is just idealistic.
• 42:22
  Speaker 4: I don't know.
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: I just want to make sure I say this. I'm
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: sorry that I declined your interview request. I'm trying to
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: remember exactly why I would have.
• 42:32
  Speaker 7: Oh, that's okay.
• 42:32
  Speaker 1: No, but I'm probably, I was probably like afraid to
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: talk to you, honestly. And so, yeah, I'm sorry about that.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: You know, I was obviously interested enough to want to
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: talk about it more. So it did have an impact
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: on me, that podcast.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: But I wasn't devastated when you said no, but I was,
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: you know, I just thought, oh, it'd be good to
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: talk to you.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: No, more I'm disappointed in my previous self for not
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: saying yes.
• 42:53
  Speaker 7: Seven years later, here we are, Brian.
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you, Gaye.
• 42:57
  Speaker 7: Thank you.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful for your openness to talking to me.
• 43:00
  Speaker 7: You're very welcome, Brian. Good luck with it.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Gay Alcorn in Melbourne, Australia. Making this episode posed a
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: unique challenge I want to tell you about. I've never
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: asked someone to talk with me on the record where
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: the roles of interviewer and interviewee were more hazy than
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: they were with me in Gay. My team and I thought,
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: if Gay is preparing to talk to me, she was,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: she really listened to all of S-Town before we spoke,
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: and interviewing me, critically, on my show, and I'm the
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: one editing and presenting that interview, that's certainly a conflict
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: of interest. How did that affect the final product? Was
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: I being fair to Gay and her position? So in
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: keeping with the mission of the show, to experiment with
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: ways of doing journalism differently, we shared a draft of
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the entire story with Gay before air. This is something
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: I don't think I've ever done before, but we wanted
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: to make sure we'd represented her accurately and fairly. She
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: responded that we had. You can read her full response
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: in our newsletter at kcrw.com slash question everything. This show
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: is going to be filled with things I've never done before.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: Question everything is an investigation happening in real time. It'll
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: shift with the news. As of this moment, I do
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: not know exactly what we'll find out or where we'll lead,
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: but I hope you come along. And in fact, you
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: can listen to our next episode right now. It's already available.
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: I got together a bunch of journalists at a bar
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: to talk candidly about our work, our fears about the
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: crisis journalism is in, and also our hopes for it,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: including my old boss at This American Life, Ira Glass.
• 44:38
  Speaker 7: She's like, what do I possibly get out of that?
• 44:41
  Speaker 7: I really had to think about, like, what does she
• 44:43
  Speaker 7: get out of this to tell this story on the radio?
• 44:45
  Speaker 7: And the only thing I came up with was, like,
• 44:47
  Speaker 7: when people hear a story that they can connect to,
• 44:52
  Speaker 7: it gives you a feeling. This is so corny.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: Again, you can check that episode out right now. And
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: when you do, please follow Question Everything on Apple, Spotify, YouTube,
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: wherever you do your listening. Question Everything comes to you
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: from KCRW and Placement Theory, which is a new production
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: company I created with my longtime colleague and executive producer
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: on this show, Robin Simeon. You can get updates on
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: this podcast and more by following KCRW and Placement Theory
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: on Instagram. Our handles are just both those names, KCRW,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: Placement Theory, and And I'm Bri H.
• 45:23
  Speaker 5: Reed.
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: If you're having thoughts of suicide, please call or text
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: 988 to get help and support. This episode was produced
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: by Lisa Pollack, Robin, and me. It was edited by
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: Jonathan Goldstein with additional support from Laura Starczewski, Neil Drumming,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and Mike Dodge-Weisskopf. Our show is produced by Zach St. Louis.
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: Emily Malterre is our production intern. Fact-checking by Kaylin Lynch.
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: Sound design by Brendan Baker. Music by Matt McGinley. Our
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: partners at KCRW include Arnie Seipel, Gina Delvac, Tejal Ajmera,
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: and Jennifer Farrow. Special thanks to Harry Clark at SoundRise.
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: Check out our next episode right now. And then we'll
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: be back again on September 26th.