I'll Be Gone In The Dark · George Clooney
Also: A San Quentin Pulitzer
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The trailer for I’ll Be Gone In The Dark has dropped. The HBO docuseries about Michelle McNamara’s hunt for the Golden State Killer will kick off on June 28. Of its six episodes, HBO says via press release that the show will focus on “the survivors and their families, documenting an era when sex crimes were often dismissed or hidden in shame.”
It’ll also spend a lot of time on the late author, HBO says, as it’s a “detective story told in McNamara’s own words.” To that end, expect “original recordings and excerpts from her book read by actor Amy Ryan,” who, with her role in Lost Girls, is having quite a true-crime book-to-screen year. — EB
The Pulitzer Prizes were announced this week. One of the honorees was Ear Hustle, the groundbreaking podcast about life inside San Quentin, perhaps one of the most notorious prisons in the U.S. While Ear Hustle’s Earlonne Woods has since been released from prison (and got a gig with the Public Radio Exchange), Rahsaan “New York” Thomas remains inside.
Last summer, Thomas wrote a fascinating piece for The Marshall Project on his work on the podcast. After his conviction for second-degree murder, he was sentenced to life in prison, which means “I will not see a parole board until I am 60 years old,” he writes. You can catch up on Ear Hustle here. — EB
Dateline’s new podcast made its debut today. Motive for Murder is a six-episode show about two related slayings in Houston. Dateline’s Josh Mankiewicz hosts, and in an interview with TV Insider says that it’s based on a story the NBC show did last year.
The podcast is “about a couple murders that happened in the Houston area back in 2012 and they almost had to be connected but the connection wasn't clear,” Mankiewicz says, perhaps partially because “it spanned multiple jurisdictions.” “It took a very long time to solve,” Mankiewicz says, but “the murderer was hiding in plain sight." You can subscribe to Motive for Murder here, the top nav has links to every podcast app you can imagine. — EB
A new Netflix show has a wild list of producers. Trial By Media isn’t true crime in the classical sense, but in my opinion it more than qualifies: per Netflix, the series covers “six televised cases defined by headlines reaching across different areas of the law including the unforgettable Jenny Jones made-for-Court TV murder trials, the sensational story of Rod Blagojevich’s political fall, and the case of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed African immigrant who was shot 41 times by police in New York City.”
The argument here is that the media has turned trials into entertainment, with the six cases as object lessons in how that’s been done. That’s why it’s kind of surprising that its masthead of producers includes Court TV founder Steven Brill, the person who arguably made all that so. But that’s not all, folks: Also on the list are CNN legal analyst/New Yorker staffer Jeffrey Toobin, who’s also done his fair share of law as entertainment, and George fucking Clooney, who I have to admit I’d kind of forgotten about for a minute! The show’s first season will be released on Netflix on May 11, and Sarah’s covering it for Primetimer early next week. — EB
If you forgot to buy your mom a Mother’s Day gift, perhaps consider Best Evidence, a gift that will arrive on time and without exploiting any workers (unless you count Sarah and me, but we sort of self-exploit). It’s $5 a month or $55 a year, and we promise we won’t tell her why you wore turtlenecks for a month after you started dating that one guy in high school.
Every time I read another story about some sketchball lab that’s making zillions on coronavirus antibody tests that likely don’t even work, I feel a little bad for Elizabeth Holmes. I know, I was surprised too. But as the crisis continues and the FDA’s relaxed ruled regarding medical testing continue, I wonder if Holmes is somewhere gritting her teeth over her terrible go-to-market timing.
I’m hardly the first person to wonder what nascent Theranoses are flourishing amid panic over the pandemic. In fact, John Carreyrou, the author of definitive Holmes tome Bad Blood, has referred his substantial Twitter following to this item in Elemental headlined “Theranos Would Be Thriving in the Covid-19 Pandemic.” If that’s not enough to get you to click, how about if I tell you that it’s by Tyler Shultz, the Theranos whistleblower who helped Carreyrou and the Wall Street Journal blow the scandal wide open? Well, it is. Here’s a snip:
A lack of regulatory oversight was Theranos’ bread and butter, and they would have thrived in this environment. I’m sure many people are thinking similarly to the congressman who argued against closing the regulatory loophole Theranos exploited: “Why in the world would a lab develop a test that wasn’t safe and accurate?” Because it is an enormous market, and it will be impossible for consumers to distinguish accurate tests from inaccurate ones. The stimulus package passed by Congress set aside $25 billion for Covid-19 testing; there are companies that won’t think twice about risking your health for a slice of that pie. The FDA published their guidelines on February 29, and less than a month later, over 100 companies had notified the FDA that they had serology tests ready for use.
Yeah, it’s densely written, but worth the 11 minutes Medium claims it’ll take to consume. Here it is. — EB
Friday on Best Evidence: What the H will be in True Crime A To Z’s H edition?
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