Muffled white noise from radios and excerpts of recollections from the podcast “Serial” resonated throughout Hendricks Chapel. As the light slowly dimmed, Sarah Koenig mysteriously appeared from behind the giant projector in the middle of the stage.

Koenig spoke to a crowd of a few hundred Syracuse community members inside Hendricks at Syracuse University on Tuesday night as the last speaker in this semester’s University Lecture series.

Koenig said “Serial,” the successful podcast she created, has had more than 200 million downloads since its release in 2014, and from every single country except for North Korea and Eritrea.

“Serial” was not Koenig’s initial plan. Instead, she thought about telling an important news story in the span of one week. She bluntly named the podcast “This Week.”

When she told her peers of her plans, she said that no one would look her in the face.

“It was horrible,” she said with a laugh.

Almost resentful, but compliant with her idea, Koenig’s boss asked, “Before we commit, do you have any other ideas?”

On a whim, Koenig suggested to do the opposite of “This Week,” and do a series of episodes about an event or case, presenting the birth of “Serial”

The first season of “Serial” centered on the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee, whose body was found in Baltimore’s Leakin Park. Lee’s boyfriend, Adnan Syed, was arrested for the crime and is currently serving his sentence in prison.

Delving into her process of investigation for the case, Koenig said it was extremely difficult to find people who would be willing to do an interview. Eventually, she had to mainly rely on the Adnan Syed MPIA file, a pdf that contained 2,000 pages.

“It was like asking for a sweater and someone handed you an angry ball of yarn,” she joked.

The most intriguing part of the MPIA was the man Mr. S, who was the one who found Lee’s body in the park, and was the first on the police’s suspect list, Koenig said.

Koenig showed the audience the specific reports on the large projector behind her, zooming in on highlighted passages. One of the passages included when Mr. S reported a crime theft, where he said someone stole his clothes and wallet on the same day that Lee was murdered.

Additionally, she noted that there was a different report that described a naked man walking down the street that same day, which was revealed to be Mr. S, proving the odd holes in the murder case.

What captivated Koenig the most, and what she said she believes is keeping people intrigued in “Serial” is the reality of what people are really capable of, and how far their boundaries are.

“It’s interesting how much you truly know what is going on in their minds,” she said.

Koenig played a couple of phone calls she had between Syed for the audience. Ultimately, she confessed that she had a more personal relationship with the convicted man, as they talked about their families, the growing of gray hair and Krispy Kreme. Syed even told her that he never thoroughly talked about his case other than with his mother and his younger brother, and as it so happened, Koenig as well.

“He was saying, ‘Do not burn me, I’m trusting you with my story,’” she said, waving a fist in the air.

Ruffling through the pages she had placed on the podium, and looking across the audience with an earnest expression, she ended her lecture by saying, “Now it’s said that we all have a smaller attention span. But really, as shown through ‘Serial,’ we really have the patience for journalism that takes its time.”

Published on April 13, 2016 at 12:42 am

Contact Yelisa: yleiva@syr.edu