Latest / Question Everything / Host Brian Reed Confronts his Toughest Critic

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Host Brian Reed Confronts his Toughest Critic · Question Everything

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Happy New Year, everybody. It is 2026 now, I guess.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: This is a week where you take stock. Think about
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: what we've done, what we've learned, what we might have
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: done differently. And we've been doing a bit of that
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: here at Question Everything. We're incredibly able to look back
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: now at dozens of episodes we've made, which this fall
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: have turned to focus in a lot of ways on
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: how tech can influence and warp our understanding of the world,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: of reality. We've been looking at how Section 230 protects
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: social media companies and others from lawsuits. But we've also
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: been hearing from whistleblowers, from people dealing with the worst
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: of deep fakes and AI. We've been trying to stay
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: on top of one of the biggest stories of the year,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the Epstein story, and just generally trying to make sense
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: of what's broken in our information ecosystem and where it
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: might be fixable. And as I look back, I kept
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: coming back to where the whole project began, our very
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: first episode. That conversation set the tone for this whole show.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: The idea that if we're going to question journalism, question
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: the way we get information, we have to start by
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: questioning ourselves. So to kick off the new year, we're
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: sharing our first episode again. It's a memorable and awkward
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: conversation I had with one of my toughest critics, someone
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: who believed a story I put out into the world
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: was morally indefensible. If you're new to this show, this
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: conversation is Set the groundwork for why we started Question
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Everything and what we're still trying to do, even as
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: we take the show in new directions. So today, we're
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: bringing you that episode again, kind of a New Year's reset.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: A heads up, this episode discusses suicide and self-harm. Here's
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: how this all came about. The story this person criticized
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: was S-Town. a podcast series I hosted in 2017, about
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: a man named John B. McLemore, who lived in rural
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Bibb County, Alabama. John B. was a listener to the
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: radio show I worked for at the time, who wrote
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: in asking us to do a story about how corrupt
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: and decrepit his area was. He called it Shit Town.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: He and I started emailing. Eventually, our emails turned to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: phone calls.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: We have just an incredible amount of police corruption. We
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: have the poorest education. We are one of the child
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: molester capitals of the states.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: We talked a bunch.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: I'm in an area that just hasn't advanced, for lack
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: of a better word. I don't have to eat a
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Tums here. Sorry about that.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Is your stomach bothering you? And over time, we grew familiar.
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: Oh, I have constant acid reflux. You know, I've had
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: it all my life.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So why, can you tell me, why did you email me?
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: John would tell me all these stories about how bad
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: it was in shit town. The poverty, the police abuse.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: One of the first stories he told me was of
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: a murder committed by a local rich kid who'd gotten
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: away with it. And so I investigated, only to discover
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: after about a year that hadn't actually happened. It was
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: just a rumor run wild. But while looking into the not-murder,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I'd gotten to know John B. He was funny, outrageous, profane, brilliant.
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: For example, P and D orbitals and electron can be
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: in two places at the same time, but not in
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: the middle. And I use that as an analogy to
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: how it is now theorized that quasars, which can appear
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: light years distances across universes, can be fed by matter
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: entering a spiraling black hole.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: John B. was a 49-year-old bachelor who lived with his
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: elderly mother on a beautiful old property in the woods.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: He spent his days maintaining a giant hedge maze in
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: his backyard, railing about society's miseries, and performing arcane chemical
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: processes in his workshop. Also, John was a world-renowned antiquarian
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: clock restorer. Collectors from all over came to him for
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: his expertise. Even though John rarely ventured far from his
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: secluded home, he was engaged with the wider world, felt
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the problems of the wider world very deeply.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: When I think about the end of my own existence,
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: I take the biggest possible picture. I don't just look
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: at myself as a 49-year-old semi-homosexual atheist living in a
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: shit town full of Baptists in Buckfoxville, Alabama. I look
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: at myself as a citizen of the world. I try
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: to look at the biggest picture possible.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: On June 22nd, 2015, John killed himself. I went to
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: his funeral in Bibb County and shortly afterwards came to
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: the decision that there was still a story worth pursuing
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: about this man I'd come to know, but whose life
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: and death there were all these questions about. For instance,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: why hadn't a man as meticulous a record keeper as
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: John left a will? and what had become of the
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: wealth he'd accumulated, fixing antique clocks. So I kept reporting.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: I spent a year and a half interviewing John's friends
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and neighbors and family, learning about his life and the
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: impact of his death on the people close to him.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: And that became S-Town. And S-Town became a phenomenon that
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed me. Don't get me wrong, I was proud of
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: the podcast. But once it came out, it took on
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: a momentum that was beyond anything I could have imagined.
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: It broke records. Millions of people listened. Jimmy Fallon had
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: me on The Tonight Show. I was invited to speak
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: in cities around the world, in London, at the Sydney
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Opera House, to impart my thoughts about S-Town and journalism
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: writ large. Please welcome the executive producer and creator of S-Town,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Brian Reid. I was a public radio producer in my
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: early 30s. The attention was cool, but also weird. And
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: it came with backlash. Estown was a character study of sorts,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: told in seven episodes, centered on this one man, John,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: who was an extraordinary person, but he wasn't a public figure.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: And so some writers and journalists started putting out pieces
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: wondering if, even if they enjoyed the podcast, I'd exposed
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: too much about John's life. They thought my reporting about
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: his mental health, his relationships, his experience as a queer
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: man in Alabama was too intrusive, and that John might
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: not have wanted me to do such a personal story
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: about him if he were alive. This is an NPR
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: reporter giving his thoughts about the podcast at an event.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you.
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: A lot of it made me as a journalist uncomfortable,
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: like that I'm peering into something that's really not something
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: that we should be, quote unquote, reporting. This is this
• 6:26
  Speaker 3: is a human drama. This is an incredibly well-told story.
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: But I don't know that it's like what we should
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: be doing.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: And here's a culture reporter for Vox.
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: The thing that makes it so amazing is also one
• 6:40
  Speaker 4: of the things that makes it so troubling to me.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: She's talking about S-Town on a radio show.
• 6:44
  Speaker 4: Maybe we didn't have a right to know any of
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: these things about this dead man who never really understood
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: that after he died, a story of his life would
• 6:51
  Speaker 4: be made and then downloaded by 40 million people.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I heard these critiques, but I was a little dismissive
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of them, maybe a little defensive. I don't know. I
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: thought about other journalists, biographers who've written stories about people
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: after they died. Did they get this kind of criticism? Plus,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: lots of good has come out of telling John's story.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: A national exhibit of his clock restoration work. A suicide
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: prevention program that's grown to train over 10,000 people in
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Alabama since the podcast came out. And so many listeners
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: who said they'd just been moved by John. So, except
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: when interviewers asked me about the critics. I didn't give
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: them too much thought. Then, I got sued. It was
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: a group of Alabama lawyers who sued me. They argued
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: that under a new Alabama law, John B. McLemore's estate
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: was entitled to money from the podcast. They used some
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: of the articles that were critical of me to make
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: their case. They even suggested in court filings that I
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: might have allowed John to kill himself so I could
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: get a story out of it and broadcast it, quote,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: to the entire world to sell advertisements for mail order
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: meals and home mortgages. Two of our sponsors were Blue
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: Apron and Rocket Mortgage. I had to turn over my interviews,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: my notebooks, my phone and computer. I was deposed. There
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: were several things that were bizarre about the suit. For one,
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the lawyers who were suing me had no personal connection
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: to John, nor did they have the support of John's family,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: who'd actually tried to prevent the lawyers from being able
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: to do this. But perhaps weirdest of all to me
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: was that under this new law, in order to win
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: their case, the lawyers had to prove that S-Town wasn't journalism.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: which meant that I had to prove that it was.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: Imagine trying to convince somebody that the thing you do
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: for work every day is indeed the thing that it is.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: Or that you think it is. We ended up settling,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: and the lawyers said in a statement that we'd acted
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: responsibly in our reporting. But during the nearly two years
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: we fought the case, I became consumed by the question,
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: what is journalism? I was like a baker, wondering what
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: is bread. And that question... What is journalism? Has only
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: come to feel more urgent. It occurred to me how
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: few hard and fast rules our profession has. There's no
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: qualification exam. You can go to school for it, but
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: lots of us don't. We just learn on the job,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: and that can really vary. Behind so many of the
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: disagreements we're in the middle of as a society, the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: confusions and fights, there's a debate about journalism. What it is,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: how it should be done, who should get to do it,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and how we can make it better. I see it everywhere,
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: in my late-night doom-scrolling. This is not journalism. This is
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: not news. I almost threw up reading it. That's not journalism.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: He steals data. He's not a journalist.
• 9:46
  Speaker 5: A few months ago, I realized that's not journalism. You're
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: not doing journalism.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: I've been troubled by the state of journalism and by
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: how much the relationship between journalists and everyone else has deteriorated.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: That's why I'm making this new show. I want to
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: create a space that isn't filled with accusations and talking
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: over each other, where people with opposing views can hear
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: each other out. A place where journalists are able to
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: be introspective about their own work, open to criticism and self-evaluation.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: But how can I ask other people to do that
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: if I'm not willing to do it myself? And so
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: I've decided to do something a little intimidating. I'm going
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: to speak to someone who criticized my most well-known story,
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: questioned whether I should have made it at all. From
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: KCRW in Los Angeles and placement theory, this is Question Everything. So,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: here's the thing about the critics of S-Town. I never
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: actually had a conversation with any of them. To be honest,
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: headlines like S-Town is a stunning podcast, it probably shouldn't
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: have been made struck me as a little click-baity, and
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: I was annoyed that the people who'd written these hadn't
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: at least called me for a comment beforehand. I'd like
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: to say their stories didn't bother me, but they did.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: As I've been getting ready to launch this podcast, I
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: thought a lot about the lack of trust in our
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: industry and the many differences of opinion about what good
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: journalism is. And inevitably, I thought about the debate over
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: S-Town and whether, despite its popularity, it was good journalism.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I started rereading the criticism. One of the toughest columns
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: was by an Australian journalist named Gay Alcorn. Gay's piece
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: had run in The Guardian Australia. Under the headline, S-Town
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: never justifies its voyeurism, and that makes it morally indefensible.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: The subhead stung even more. John B. McLemore's agonies are
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: laid out for our entertainment, with scant reflection by the
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: podcast reporter as to the ethics of what he's doing.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: There was a photo of me talking to my editor
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: with a big grin on my face. I think it
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: finally hit me, or at least I finally let myself acknowledge,
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: what was underneath the more abstract discussion of journalistic ethics.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It felt to me like the critics were suggesting that
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: maybe I wasn't a decent person, that I'd treated someone,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: that I'd treated John badly. Gay Alcorn's been a reporter
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: and editor for about 30 years, twice as long as me.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: She's won major awards for her feature writing, In the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: early 2000s, she was stationed in Washington for multiple Australian papers.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: She later became editor of one of Australia's oldest newspapers,
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: The Age. The idea that such an accomplished journalist had
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: found fault with my work isn't one I was eager
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: to dwell on. But here we are. Gay and I
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: speak late on a Tuesday night, my time, early morning
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: for her the next day, over in Melbourne. We talk
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: for more than two hours. I learn as we're talking
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: that after her column ran, she had tried to get
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: an interview with me when I spoke about S-Town in Australia.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I don't remember this exactly, but I must have gotten
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: the request, seen who it was, and declined. Which is
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: to say, this is a conversation seven years in the making.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised how nervous I am going into the interview. Frankly,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I don't even know if it is an interview. Will
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: I be interviewing gay? Is gay interviewing me? When I
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: sat down to prepare... Instead of writing questions like I
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: normally do, I spewed out pages and pages, paragraphs of thoughts, arguments, chronicling,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: I guess, my reasons for making various decisions in S-Town.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: I asked A what she remembered about the first time
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: she listened to my podcast.
• 13:33
  Speaker 6: I did find it so compelling and interesting and remarkable,
• 13:37
  Speaker 6: but the more it went on, the more I thought, oh,
• 13:40
  Speaker 6: this is really worrying me.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: What worried you about it?
• 13:43
  Speaker 5: There were a couple of issues.
• 13:45
  Speaker 6: I mean, the first one is the obvious one, which
• 13:48
  Speaker 6: is that John came to you for a specific purpose,
• 13:51
  Speaker 6: which was to investigate a murder in Chittown, as he
• 13:54
  Speaker 6: called it. That was the basis of the interviews. And
• 13:58
  Speaker 6: then after he died, after he took his own life,
• 14:02
  Speaker 6: the story shifted and became about his life. And I
• 14:05
  Speaker 6: think you say at some point in the podcast that
• 14:09
  Speaker 6: I think it's a worthwhile thing to understand another human being.
• 14:13
  Speaker 6: And I do too, and that's what we do. But
• 14:15
  Speaker 6: that's different to understand another human being, to do a
• 14:19
  Speaker 6: seven-part podcast series on them, revealing every intimate and sordid
• 14:23
  Speaker 6: detail of their life when they haven't given you explicit
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: consent to doing that.
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: That's what worried me.
• 14:29
  Speaker 6: And I think I said in my piece that I
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: could have forgiven you almost anything if you'd taken me
• 14:32
  Speaker 6: through the process of explaining why you thought this was
• 14:36
  Speaker 6: worthwhile to do and if you'd explained your thinking and
• 14:39
  Speaker 6: your producer's thinking about the ethics and the morality of
• 14:44
  Speaker 6: telling the story, depending on what you said, I think
• 14:48
  Speaker 6: the program is justifiable because it is worthwhile telling human
• 14:52
  Speaker 6: stories and it was a rich life of a human being.
• 14:55
  Speaker 6: But I just thought, when is he going to say,
• 14:59
  Speaker 6: why is he using this? I mean, I'm interested in
• 15:01
  Speaker 6: whether you or your producer's talked about that as in
• 15:05
  Speaker 6: he did come to us for a different purpose but
• 15:08
  Speaker 6: you know you had all these tapes uh was there
• 15:11
  Speaker 6: a discussion about the ethics of telling his story when
• 15:15
  Speaker 6: he was now.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Dead um yes i mean there was discussion about what
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: do we do now is there a story i mean
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the first thing was um i just wanted to go
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to the funeral And I did feel a little confused
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: about my relationship to that. I think I even say
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: this in the story, but to John and to the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: people there. But I was told come, and I wanted
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: to come. By that point— Gay's question was a straightforward one,
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: but my answer wasn't. I told her about how John
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: didn't just come to me about the murder. There was
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: lots he wanted me to look into. I told her
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: how even after there turned out to be no murder—
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I was talking to John about still trying to do
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: a different story about his town, how I was making
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: plans to come back down in a few weeks to
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: do more reporting when he killed himself. What I ended
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: up going down for was John's funeral instead. And pretty quickly,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: people who knew John were telling me about things that
• 16:18
  Speaker 1: seemed suspicious to them. There was the question of a will.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: Was somebody hiding it? There was the question of gold
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: John had. What had happened to that? Plus, I told Gaye,
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: I found myself with questions about who this man was
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: that I'd gotten to know, who I felt had made
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: an impact on my life and was upset, had taken
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: his life. So that was the conversation when I came
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: back from John's funeral. I talked with my editors about
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: this and kind of what we agreed I would continue
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: to look into. I don't think we were like, this
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: is a story and we're airing it.
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: But I think I was aware of the I don't know,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: perverse or kind of morbid reality that suddenly after someone dies,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: there was something to report on, you know? And I
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: think that is like a dark truth about our work
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: and maybe the world. But yeah, that was the process.
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: That's interesting.
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: And I guess it gets trickier, and were there conversations
• 17:19
  Speaker 6: particularly about his sexuality and his abuse of himself from
• 17:26
  Speaker 6: tattoo after tattoo and his desire for pain, which I
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: found very, very confronting, and obviously it was confronting.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: What Gay's talking about here is the last chapter of S-Town,
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: where I go into detail about the end of John's
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: life and how he'd taken to getting tattooed and pierced
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: over and over for the pain.
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: Were there discussions, apart from, yes, let's go on and
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: do a bit more reporting, about those particular things and
• 17:51
  Speaker 6: the ethics of revealing the most difficult and private parts
• 17:56
  Speaker 6: of a person when he had not consented to that?
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: Were there discussions with your editors about those particular things? Sorry,
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: I feel like I'm interviewing you here.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: There's my answer as to who's interviewer and interviewee. And
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: when I re-listened to the recording of this conversation later,
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: I realized how frustrating an interviewee I was. Somehow I
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: was talking a lot without answering Gay's question. Like when
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: I read your critique, honestly, it surprised me because the
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: idea that the existence of the story would be questioned,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: that wasn't something that felt controversial to me. That is
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: not to say there weren't many challenging ethical and editorial
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: decisions to make along the way about what to include,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: why and how to include them and what to do
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: in the reporting about that. So it was filled with
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: very difficult decisions. But the question of whether it would
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: be okay to even do the story in the first
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: place was surprising to me in your critique. But all
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: that is to say.
• 18:56
  Speaker 5: I wasn't the only critique who said that.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, no, no, you weren't. I was surprised
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: by it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: Wondered whether or not.
• 19:04
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I can see why you were, but wondered what's
• 19:06
  Speaker 6: the justification for this at all, particularly when he's not
• 19:09
  Speaker 6: a public figure in any way. he hasn't given you
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: specific consent to do a story on his life and
• 19:16
  Speaker 6: particularly the most sensitive parts of his life.
• 19:19
  Speaker 5: You know, why do you think this is a story
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: at all?
• 19:23
  Speaker 6: What's your answer to that criticism of mine and others,
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: even questioning whether or not it's legitimate to do this
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: to a private person when he's not around to consent
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: or otherwise? I....
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I and others learn important things about the world and
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: about the experience of other people from stories like this.
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: And I know that sounds like maybe a little touchy-feely
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: or something. but that is truly the belief I was
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: operating from, was I felt that I was learning things,
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: that this very terrible tragedy had happened, but that there
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: was a way to make meaning out of it that
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: could be helpful and meaningful to other people. It may
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: have been different, for instance, if when I started calling
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: people who John had known If people said, you really
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: shouldn't do this, I don't think this is a good idea,
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: I cannot think of a single person who said that.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: In fact, it was often quite the opposite. As his
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: professor told me from his college professor who had become
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: a lifelong friend, he said, I've been waiting for someone
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: to tell the story of this man who's one of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: the most remarkable people I've ever met. Had that not
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: been the case, maybe I might have made a different decision.
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: That's a very good answer, and I understand your thinking
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: on that. I guess can you address the issue of
• 20:39
  Speaker 6: consent directly?
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, let's take the issue of sexuality specifically
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: because I think that is really at the core of
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: a lot of your criticism and other people's criticism and,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: you know, reasonable questions. To what extent and whether to
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: talk about his sexuality was a serious thing. It just
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: wasn't one decision.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: It was....
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Something that happened over time. And John talked to me
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: about his sexuality on the record. Had he stayed alive
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: and I'd continue doing a story, I think there would
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: have been an ongoing discussion that I had with him.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: And he may have at some point said, you know,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: I don't want you talking about my sexuality in the story.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: And I cannot imagine a world in which I would
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: have said, well, tough shit. That said, We didn't have
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: a big discussion about I'm going to do a story
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: where this is in the story because I didn't know
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: that the opportunity for having that discussion, you know, would
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: go away. And so I wasn't sure when we started,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: you know, I was like, I don't know if this
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: needs to be included. I don't know if this is
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: OK to include. And my decision about it came out
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: of many months of reporting and talking to people and
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: getting a sense of is this important to the story
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: and is there public interest in this? And what effect
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: will this have on John's legacy and on his community?
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: So that comes from kind of getting a sense of
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: who he was out to, who knew about his sexuality,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: who didn't, what they said about it. If they thought
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: it was important to him, you know, if they thought
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: it was important to understanding why he died and why
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: he was depressed and decisions he made. And then a
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: really important conversation I had was with John's– so John's
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: closest living relative was his mother who has dementia. Her
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: conservator and the person who was really managing John's affairs
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: was was his cousin Rita who came in from Florida.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: And at some point I had a conversation with her
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: about John's sexuality to kind of get a sense like,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: do people in the family know this? How would you
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: feel about this? And I came out of that conversation
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: comfortable with the impact this would have. And that was
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: not the case with many things that we didn't include.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I did believe very deeply that it was important to
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: tell this man the story of this man's life and
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: why he ended it. And That story I don't feel
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you can tell without talking about his experience as a
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: queer man in the Deep South. And so maybe that's
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: a decision we could have made, but there was no
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: way to tell that story without including that, that I
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: could imagine that would be fair and truthful to the world.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: So that was.
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: My thinking about it.
• 23:19
  Speaker 6: And yes, that episode in particular was a really– powerful
• 23:24
  Speaker 6: insight in what it was like to be a gay
• 23:26
  Speaker 6: man in the South at those times. I just wish
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: you'd been a little bit more– it sounds like you
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: didn't really– have any serious ethical issues as you were
• 23:36
  Speaker 6: doing it. Once you'd made the decision to tell John's
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: story after he died, then, you know, you thought that
• 23:42
  Speaker 6: was fair enough.
• 23:43
  Speaker 5: He'd given you all these interviews.
• 23:44
  Speaker 6: It was never going to be a story really just
• 23:46
  Speaker 6: about the murder, even though the first couple of episodes
• 23:48
  Speaker 6: are about that. I wonder whether you thought there were
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: any significant ethical issues that you confronted with.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: I guess there wasn't. What I'm saying is there wasn't
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: a fundamental... Once we kind of like As I began
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to talk to people and get their participation and encouragement
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: and their understanding about the enterprise of the story, the
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: question of whether or not to do it wasn't a
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: huge ethical question. It was more these kind of decisions
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: along the way.
• 24:18
  Speaker 6: I guess I'm interested in whether the show got enormous
• 24:22
  Speaker 6: praise and enormous accolades, but it did get some criticism
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: along the lines of mine, I think, generally, that whether
• 24:29
  Speaker 6: or not you thought they had any validity.
• 24:32
  Speaker 5: Those critiques?
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Upon revisiting it, I think there is absolutely something in
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: your piece that I can agree with. And that is
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the overarching argument you make, which is that we should
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: have been clearer or could have been clearer and more
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: transparent about our decision-making process when we did struggle, why
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: we did make a certain decision about what to include
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: or why we did something in the story. And that criticism,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: I think, is legitimate and real.
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: Well, it's interesting because you reveal all other things in
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: the podcast. You don't pretend you're an objective reporter. But
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: those issues you don't talk about much, and that I
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: do think was a real witness of the show, whether
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: or not you still think the show is worthwhile.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you call it in the piece like
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: a fake or limited transparency.
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: Indeed.
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Like I can understand that. I think that nothing
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: would have been lost by us– explaining more our thinking
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: and in fact there could have been a lot to
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: be gained like there's this one part i've always wished
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: that i'd done differently um i'm pulling it up here
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: hold on so this is in in chapter six um
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: i'm driving around john and we get to a conversation
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: about what it's like to be gay in his county
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: and This is going to sound like a ridiculous question,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: but is there a gay scene down here?
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: Oh my God, there's no telling how many closet cases
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: are in this town.
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: You turn that off and I'll tell you something. And
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: this is when he tells me to turn the tape
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: recorder off.
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: Hit the kill button for.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: A second. And I write here, this is one of
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the few times John ever asked me to turn my
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: recorder off. What that usually means is that I wouldn't
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: tell you what he said without getting his permission to
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: describe it. But there are a few reasons I'm going
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: to give you an overview of what he told me
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: in the car that day. First, since John died, two
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: other people who knew him well have told me the
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: same information on the record. Also, John was very clear
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: that he did not believe in God or an afterlife.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: So John, in his own view, is worm dirt now,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: unaffected by this. And lastly, what John disclosed and where
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: it led me after he died helped me understand him
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: so much more. And I think trying to understand another
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: person is a worthwhile thing to do. So this is
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: a part where I've looked back and.
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: I.
• 26:51
  Speaker 5: Think that's a big glib, Brian, to be honest with you.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly. Yes, I think it is. I think it
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: can come off that way.
• 26:58
  Speaker 6: I do wonder, though, why you can talk about his
• 27:01
  Speaker 6: sexuality and being gay in the South and his yearning
• 27:04
  Speaker 6: for love that he never really found, which was also
• 27:07
  Speaker 6: very moving, without actually saying that he had an affair
• 27:10
  Speaker 6: with a married man, like a straight married man in
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: the town. I mean, that was the particular thing, I think,
• 27:16
  Speaker 6: where he said, this is off the record, I want
• 27:17
  Speaker 6: you to talk about this.
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: The specific thing was the identity of the man. So
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: the part that he– and that's another part that I wish, like,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: I had written more precisely here. Okay. Specifically was the
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: identity of this person. And that has remained off the record.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: So I didn't breach a specific request to be off
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: the record, but I understand why it's not clear. And
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: that's another part why I regret this writing. I don't
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: think it's– I both don't think it's, like, broad enough
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: and deals with, like, the broader question. And then I
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: don't think it's precise enough and then could be, you know–
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: received as you did as Glib, which is certainly not
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: my intention.
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: No, I'm sure it wasn't your intention because it's the
• 27:55
  Speaker 6: only time you directly address it and it was just
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: a little bit quick and throw away.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I've always kind of had a sense like I
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: wish I could redo this part and then rereading your
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: piece and I think I even have a bigger understanding
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: of what I would do differently.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Can we go back to something? I think you'd asked
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: me a question that maybe I didn't totally answer or
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: brought up a point that I didn't totally answer, which
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: is about the extent to which John consented to the
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: story or which story he consented to. Like what's the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: specific consent you would have wanted or that you feel
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: would have been needed to do the story we did
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: in a way that wasn't so worrying?
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: Well, he couldn't give consent because he died.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 28:42
  Speaker 6: So that's the whole question about whether the story should
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: have been done at all. He obviously consented to give
• 28:46
  Speaker 6: you all sorts of interviews where he ranted on and
• 28:48
  Speaker 6: on and on about all sorts of things, but he
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: never consented for you to do a story that would
• 28:53
  Speaker 6: go into the most private and painful and sordid details
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: of his life and his significant mental illness.
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: He never consented to that. Or tell me he did.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: No, I mean, he never explicitly told me he had
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: mental illness. I think he was undiagnosed, so certainly no.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: I've been in Gay's position as a reporter. You aren't
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: satisfied with the answer you're getting, so you keep asking it,
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: slightly different ways, in the hope of shaking loose what
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: you're looking for. I wanted to give Gay what she
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: was looking for, but I don't think I ever quite did,
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: because I still couldn't fully internalize Gay's criticism. Until later,
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: after we were done talking. Gay wasn't arguing that I
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: wasn't allowed to tell John's story. She was posing the question...
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: of whether I should have. She was saying that even
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: if John came to us and wanted me to do
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: a story, even if he shared personal information with me
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: for it, he died in the middle of the process,
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: before I knew exactly what the story would be. He
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: killed himself while I was figuring that out, a week
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: or two before I was supposed to go visit him
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: again and do more reporting. And so I never was
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: able to say to him directly, I'm going to produce
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: an in-depth portrait of your life. Is that okay? And
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: he never got to say yes or no. Gay wanted
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: to know and wished I'd said in S-Town how much
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: I'd wrestled with that. And the truth was, I hadn't.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: Not in the way Gay was picturing. I reached out
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: to my editors on S-Town to see if they'd ever
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: experienced inklings of the moral conflict Gay feels. They hadn't either.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: There was also something I was trying to get across
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: to Gay in this conversation, though. I noticed that after
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: John died, I felt my responsibilities shift. John's consent mattered.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: But I often found myself giving the needs of the
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: living more weight. How would my reporting affect people who
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: are alive? How could it help or hurt them? Those
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: were the ethical questions my editors and I wrestled with most.
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: It came up when Gay said this about my telling
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of John's life.
• 30:57
  Speaker 6: It was, uh, It was very intrusive and not just
• 31:02
  Speaker 6: the things that he'd told you, but of the detail
• 31:05
  Speaker 6: of his masochism, I guess, or the pain and getting
• 31:07
  Speaker 6: tattoo after tattoo and being whipped. You didn't get that
• 31:10
  Speaker 6: from him at all. You got that from Tyler. And
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: I found that really intrusive.
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: Tyler is Tyler Goodson, a local guy in his early
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: 20s that John had introduced me to. John had become
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: kind of a father figure to Tyler. who was estranged
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: from his own dad, a criminal. But at the end
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: of John's life, he'd recruited Tyler into some of his
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: pain rituals, asking Tyler not only to tattoo him over
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: and over, but to whip him. Clearly, John and Tyler
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: had a complex relationship. But Tyler was devastated when John died.
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: He'd been with him just hours before. People believed that
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Tyler had been taking advantage of John, playing him for money,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: getting him into a dark headspace of tattoos and drinking.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: which led to his death. But for me, learning about
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: the pain rituals put the lie to this narrative about Tyler.
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: Speaking with Tyler showed a different power dynamic between the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: two men. John was much older than Tyler. He had money.
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: Tyler didn't. John was pressuring and sometimes paying Tyler to
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: inflict pain on him, even though Tyler had said he
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: wanted to stop and was no longer comfortable with it.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: People had an inaccurate or at least incomplete view of
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: Tyler and John's relationship, one that could have had implications
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: for Tyler. So I included those confronting details, as Gay
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: called them, out of a sense of journalistic fairness to Tyler.
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: Yes, and that does come across, I think, that part
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: of the series is about.
• 32:42
  Speaker 5: Empathy for Tyler. I think that does certainly come across.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: Did hearing Estown bring anything specific to mind when you said, like,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: it worried you or you found it confronting, an experience
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: you'd had with a subject or source or a story
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: that you'd be open to talking about?
• 32:57
  Speaker 6: You know, when I was younger, I think I was,
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: you know, we're hungry for bylines and for our own
• 33:06
  Speaker 6: advancement and our own ego in some ways. And I
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: love being a journalist and I think it's a great profession.
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: But as I've got older, and I think a lot
• 33:14
  Speaker 6: of journalists as they get older, see the greys a
• 33:16
  Speaker 6: little bit more, particularly with private individuals, people who are
• 33:22
  Speaker 6: Ordinary people, I mean, I certainly have done stories where
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: I've kind of thought, oh, you know, did they really,
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: particularly long narrative stories, did they really understand the impact
• 33:33
  Speaker 6: the story might have on their life or their relationships
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: to their siblings or their.
• 33:37
  Speaker 5: Family and friends?
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: But I did work on a series many years ago,
• 33:41
  Speaker 6: a narrative series on a gambler. And we decided to,
• 33:46
  Speaker 6: there was a lot of gambling problems in Melbourne at
• 33:48
  Speaker 6: the time, and we decided to try to tell one
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: person's story to kind of reveal the broader issue through
• 33:53
  Speaker 6: one person's story. And it was a man who was
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: a migrant to Australia who had driven up beside the
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: casino and said, I'm going to blow the casino up.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Gay says there was a huge standoff with police. The
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: whole area by the casino was cordoned off. In the end,
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: there wasn't a bomb in the man's car.
• 34:13
  Speaker 6: It was a hoax. It was a cry for help,
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: some people might say. And it turned out that he'd
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: lost everything through gambling. And I told his story over,
• 34:20
  Speaker 6: I think it was a seven-part series. And I interviewed
• 34:23
  Speaker 6: his wife and his children and all sorts of people.
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: And I remember a couple of days before the story
• 34:30
  Speaker 6: was to be published, he rang me up and he said,
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: I don't think I want this story out.
• 34:34
  Speaker 5: I'm really worried about this story.
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: I can't remember whether he actually said, I don't want
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: you to run it. I can't remember if he was
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: specific of that, but he was sort of, and I
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: understand this, goodness me, wouldn't you be nervous, Brian, if
• 34:45
  Speaker 6: someone wanted to tell your entire life?
• 34:48
  Speaker 5: I would too.
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: And I don't know if I would agree to that,
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: to be honest. And I sort of talked to him
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: about it and tried to calm him down. But The
• 34:58
  Speaker 6: idea of pulling the story at that point was probably
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: not going to happen.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Do you remember at all what you said in that
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: discussion where he was worried?
• 35:05
  Speaker 6: I think I sort of said, look, you know, it's
• 35:10
  Speaker 6: been very carefully done. You know, you don't come out
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: of it, you know, badly. There's a lot of empathy
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: for your situation here. It's not an attack on you
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: or a criticism of you or your family in any way.
• 35:22
  Speaker 6: And I probably would have said, You know, it might
• 35:27
  Speaker 6: help others in some way that it has a public purpose.
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: I don't know really what the fallout was for them,
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: but also I don't think that I went back to
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: him and his family enough afterwards.
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: I didn't.
• 35:44
  Speaker 6: I think the impact of that story would have been
• 35:46
  Speaker 6: very large on their family and I don't think I
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: was as sensitive and empathetic as I should have been.
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: I was terribly proud of the story, do you know
• 35:56
  Speaker 5: what I mean?
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: Yeah. And I don't think that I, you know, really understood.
• 36:02
  Speaker 6: I was a lot younger then. I don't think I
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: really understood the impact and also my obligation to go
• 36:08
  Speaker 6: back and support them as much.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: As I should have.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: So did you have any follow-ups?
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: Some follow-ups, but I.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: You know, I wish I had, you know, gone and
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: saw them again. I think I called them and so on,
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: but gone and saw them and just talked it through
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: a little bit more about, okay, what did this, particularly
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: their kids, they had teenage kids.
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Would following up with them, do you think that would
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: have helped them? Would it have helped you feel better?
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: What would have come of that that you regret that
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: you didn't do?
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: So if I had followed up more?
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah.
• 36:39
  Speaker 5: I think it could have, just being a decent person,
• 36:43
  Speaker 5: you know, like. Right. I'm not saying I'm not a
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: decent person. I think I am.
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: And I think I'm an ethical journalist, you know, although
• 36:48
  Speaker 6: I've made mistakes and regret things in the past. But
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: I think to sort of say you treated me as
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: some way as a friend and you've revealed things to
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: me that are very personal and that are painful to you.
• 37:01
  Speaker 6: and that I am still here for you even after
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: the story is published, that I'm not, you know, I'm
• 37:07
  Speaker 6: not going to do that in a sort of a
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: casual way but in a substantial way and make time,
• 37:13
  Speaker 6: you know, for you to say what you think.
• 37:16
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: Maybe it would have made no difference. But I think
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: it might have helped them and whether it would have
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: helped me or not, I think I'd feel better about
• 37:25
  Speaker 6: it now. I've always felt a little bit ashamed of it.
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: I think I said in a piece that, you know,
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: ultimately these stories are your stories.
• 37:44
  Speaker 5: You know, it's not John's story.
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: It is the reporter's story and ultimately what we care
• 37:49
  Speaker 6: about most. This is what my daughter who has made
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: podcasts sort of said to me when I said I
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: was terribly worried about S-Town. And she said, oh, well,
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: that's what you do.
• 37:58
  Speaker 5: You don't really.
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: Care about the people you're dealing with. You care ultimately
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: about the story. And I found that a very harsh
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: thing that she said. But it was sort of true
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: that your first obligation is to do the very best
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: story you can. And people think they might think you're
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: their friend and you're not their friend. The story is
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: ultimately the thing. And that's what my daughter said to me.
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: That's what you do, mum.
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: How did it feel for her to say that to you?
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: I was so hurt.
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: I was so hurt and upset and I thought, oh,
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: you know, and I thought, oh, you know, I think
• 38:34
  Speaker 6: I said in that piece that she knows me so
• 38:36
  Speaker 6: well that, you know, she's seen me do these things
• 38:39
  Speaker 6: many times. And as I say, look, I do take
• 38:43
  Speaker 6: ethics seriously and certainly as I've got older I see
• 38:46
  Speaker 6: the grey so much more than I did in my 20s.
• 38:49
  Speaker 6: But ultimately people have to know that the story is
• 38:53
  Speaker 6: is that comes first and that your Brian Reads or
• 38:57
  Speaker 6: my first obligation is to the story.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: This dilemma, I definitely know. Last December, Tyler, the local
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: young man John had been close with, who I'd spent
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: a year and a half reporting on after John died,
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: was shot and killed by police at his house. He
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: was 32 years old. I went to his memorial in Woodstock.
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: His family, He has young kids. We're wracked with the
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: shock and sorrow of it. They still are. It was
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: the second funeral I'd gone to in Woodstock, Alabama. These
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: two men, Tyler and John, I knew them in a
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: powerful way. A way that's singular, I think, to someone
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: who's documented the life of another person. Knowing them had
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: changed my life for the better. And I believe it
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: has changed others' lives for the better. But my work
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: hadn't stopped their suffering. I wasn't at Tyler's memorial as
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a friend. But I wasn't there as a journalist anymore either.
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: I was just there. Do you mind if I just
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: see if I have any questions I haven't asked you
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that I've thought of?
• 40:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm just thinking the same thing.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: Take a minute.
• 40:15
  Speaker 5: I think we've gone through most of it.
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: Um, it's funny, even in this discussion of, I don't know,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: it's not funny, but I'm noting that even in this
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: discussion about the human tragedy at the heart of S-Town,
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: we're still talking about the story and the reporting choices.
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: Yes.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: And, you know, honestly, the, if I really think about
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the real thing I regret, um, in this whole experience
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: and that actually, that I feel real guilt about is
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: that I wasn't able to, or didn't do enough to
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: stop John from killing himself. Like that's the actual just
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: human guilt that I feel and I felt through this
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: whole experience separate of the story. But somehow we're still
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: like talking about the storytelling decisions. But I feel less
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: conflicted about what I did after and much more conflicted
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: about what I didn't do before.
• 41:13
  Speaker 6: You think you could have done something else or is
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: that sort of a general human thing to say, I
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: wish I could have done something, even though, you know,
• 41:18
  Speaker 6: you couldn't really.
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: I think it's both. I don't think it's fair. Like
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't, if someone else were saying this to me,
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: I would say, don't blame yourself, you know? And in fact,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: I have said that to people and I've had that
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: said to me. That said, I do think there are,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: you know, now I attended one of these trainings that
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: they're giving in Alabama for suicide prevention. There are specific
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: things you can try to do. It's QPR question, persuade, um, refer.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: I'd wish I'd known that, you know, and had kind
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: of that training at the time. And maybe there's, you know,
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: there could have been a little more framework to how
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: I was talking to him the times he brought up
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: suicide rather than just winging it. So I It's been
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: really helpful to talk to you, Gay. Thank you. It's
• 42:09
  Speaker 1: been really helpful.
• 42:11
  Speaker 6: I'm glad.
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: I guess I'm just curious if you think there's anything
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: I haven't, I don't know, answered, I guess.
• 42:17
  Speaker 5: I think we've gone through all of it, Brian.
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: Until there's another three hours I could do.
• 42:23
  Speaker 6: Yeah, you've allowed yourself to be stripped and, you know, oh, Brian,
• 42:28
  Speaker 6: why are you doing.
• 42:29
  Speaker 5: This to yourself?
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: That's what my wife said. She's like, you're a very
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: interesting person to submit yourself to these.
• 42:37
  Speaker 5: I don't know.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: I feel, you know, honestly, there's a we shouldn't be
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: afraid of this. And it's kind of my thought about
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: this show is just if we talk about this more,
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: if there's more openness about the process, hopefully we'll build trust,
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: you know, in various directions. You know, I don't know.
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: Maybe this is just idealistic. I don't know. I just
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: want to make sure I say this. I'm sorry that
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: I declined your interview request. I'm trying to remember exactly
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: why I would have.
• 43:02
  Speaker 5: Oh, that's okay.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: No, but I'm probably, I was probably like afraid to
• 43:07
  Speaker 1: talk to you, honestly. And so, yeah, I'm sorry about that.
• 43:10
  Speaker 6: You know, I was obviously interested enough to want to
• 43:13
  Speaker 6: talk about it more. So it did have an impact
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: on me, that podcast. Yeah. But I wasn't devastated when
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: you said no, but I was, you know, I just thought, oh,
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: it'd be good to talk to you.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: No, more I'm disappointed in my previous self for not
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: saying yes.
• 43:24
  Speaker 5: Seven years later, here we are, Brian.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Gaye.
• 43:28
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: I'm grateful for your openness to talking to me.
• 43:31
  Speaker 5: You're very welcome, Brian. Good luck with it.
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: Gay Alcorn in Melbourne, Australia. Making this episode posed a
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: unique challenge I want to tell you about. I've never
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: asked someone to talk with me on the record where
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: the roles of interviewer and interviewee were more hazy than
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: they were with me in gay. My team and I thought,
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: if Gay is preparing to talk to me, she was,
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: she re-listened to all of S-Town before we spoke, and
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: interviewing me, critically, on my show, and I'm the one
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: editing and presenting that interview, that's certainly a conflict of interest.
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: How did that affect the final product? Was I being
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: fair to Gay and her position? So in keeping with
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: the mission of the show, to experiment with ways of
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: doing journalism differently, we shared a draft of the entire
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: story with Gay before air. This is something I don't
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: think I've ever done before, but we wanted to make
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: sure we'd represented her accurately and fairly. She responded that
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: we had. You can read Gay Alcorn's full response at
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: our Substack. That's at questioneverything.substack.com. Please subscribe. And I know
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: we covered some heavy topics in this episode. If you're
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: having thoughts of suicide, please call or text 988 to
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: get help and support. This episode first ran in September
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: of 2024. And I just thought I'd mention that a
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: few weeks ago, Tyler Goodson's family, his estate, filed a
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: wrongful death lawsuit against the police who killed him in Alabama.
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: Lisa Pollack and Robin Simeon produced this episode along with me.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It was edited by Jonathan Goldstein with additional support from
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: Laura Starczewski, Neil Drumming, and Mike Dodge-Weisskopf. Fact-checking was by
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: Kaylin Lynch, sound design and mixing by Brendan Baker, and
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: our music by Matt McGinley. Our executive producers are me
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: and Robin Simeon. The rest of our team includes managing
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: editor Kevin Sullivan, producers Sophie Kazis and Zach St. Louis,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: contributing editors Neil Drumming and Jen Kinney, and associate producers
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: Kevin Shepard and Emma Grillo. Our partners at KCRW include
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: Arnie Seipel, Tejal Ajmera, Natalie Hill, and Jennifer Farrow. Next week,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: one year after the L.A. fires, what was it like
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: to cover that story while your own house was burning down?
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: We go to L.A., buy some journalists a drink, and
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: ask them, How are things going now? Happy New Year.
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: We'll see you next Thursday.