duPont Award winner “Serial” returns to the headlines

Adnan Syed, the subject of Serial’s first season, leaves the Baltimore City Circuit Court on Monday, September 18. Ting Shen/The New York Times

This week, the hit podcast and 2016 duPont-Columbia Award winner “Serial” returned to the news. In 2014, the podcast garnered national attention for its coverage of the trial of Adnan Syed, a young Baltimore man who in 2000 was convicted for the murder of his ex-girlfriend Hae Min Lee. On Monday, Adnan’s conviction was vacated. 

“Serial” revealed serious problems in the handling of the Syed case, including an alibi witness who was never contacted and unreliable cellphone tower records used to track Syed’s movements. According to the jury for the 2016 awards, the series offered “a microscopic look at the inadequacies of the criminal justice system, and a behind-the-scenes portrait of an investigative reporter at work.” 

In 2016, Serial producers Sarah Koenig, Julie Snyder and Dana Chivvis attended a panel at Columbia Journalism School and discussed the background and process of creating “Serial.” You can listen to that panel, hosted by Columbia Professor and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient Daniel Alarcon, on “On Assignment,” the duPont-Columbia podcast. 

And you can read the duPont jury’s full remarks here.