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Plus: Disgraceland, Amanda Knox, and Death Becomes Us
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Mike Boudet is returning to Sword and Scale. The host of the popular true crime podcast (how popular? Well, at its peak it reportedly made $75K/month on Patreon alone) left the show in March after he exhibited a pattern of repeated misogynistic remarks and alleged coordinated harassment.
The matter was serious enough that The Wondery Network, which had produced the show, broke ties with the series. It continued under host Tricia Griffith until this week, when via press release the show announced that Griffith is out and Boudet is back in.
When the controversy ignited this spring, one of the sharpest commentators on the issue was Rebecca Lavoie of Crime Writers On…. In a series of tweets, she said that while she supported Boudet’s free speech rights, it is her -- and all of our -- right to call out his “hateful and misogynistic” remarks, as his behavior is “a real liability to his partners and to our industry.” On the news of his return, Best Evidence circled back with Lavoie to get her response.
EB: In your opinion, have Mike’s issues - I'll specify as a possible mental health crisis as well as intentional/malicious harassment of those with whom he disagrees - been resolved. Has he actively "gone after" you or anyone you're aware of since he stepped away from the show, or has he seemed to rally his fans to behave similarly?
RL: While it would be inappropriate for me to armchair diagnose Mike Boudet, I can say that a lot of his behavior bears the hallmarks of someone dealing with a complicated mix of health and personal issues. His very public cycles begin with self-destructive and malevolent behavior followed by intense periods of gaslighting and faux contrition, followed then by withdrawal in the name of recuperation. Finally, he'll reappear and be cool for a short time, only to come out swinging days later, starting the cycle all over again.
And while I was at first (a couple of years ago) more sympathetic to his ups and downs stemming from some kind of mental health crisis, his recent and more overt embracing of racist, sexist, xenophobic, and other toxic brands of rhetoric has made him a real liability in my industry -- the behavior has trumped the underlying cause, in other words. Add to that the fact that he uses his platforms to lie, to harass women, and to relentlessly target his perceived enemies, and you've get a real peach, here.
As far as I'm concerned, Mike isn't just a bad actor. It's more dangerous than that, because he manipulates his fans into joining his faux-cause, and it's clear many of them are doing so without an understanding of what this guy is all about.
I can't point to places where Mike himself has "gone after" me or my show (although I know they exist because others have sent me screenshots over the past few months), but he has certainly activated his fans to do so. A simple filtering for one-star reviews on my podcast will quickly reveal how that works.
I'm also extremely curious about your take on why the show would (per the press release) re-release all the "Griffith-hosted episodes, this time with Boudet narrating." I'm just so taken aback by his/his company's decision to do that, and can't figure out what it means.
What does it mean? It means that Sword & Scale IS Mike Boudet -- it's that simple. And I don't mean that in a good way, like "Fixer Upper IS Chip and Joanna!"
One of the more astonishing decisions made around the show after his recent controversy (AKA The Cuntroversy) was the decision to put IDENTICAL episodes (but hosted by Mike!) to the ones hosted by Griffith behind the Patreon firewall. I mean, it's kind of genius on the monetization side, but it also exposes a stark truth about that podcast and its creator: Sword & Scale is a for-profit product, period. Mike Boudet is all about making a buck, period. (And if you think making that up, just watch this video of a young Mike, in which he gleefully admits to being an internet grifter.) And, Sword & Scale fans won't tolerate the show's content - even if it's actually identical - being delivered by a woman, period.
A recent job description for a "producer" for the show also exposed this and took it further - seeing how this particular podcast sausage is made isn't pretty. Sword & Scale isn't made to expose crime stories to a bigger audience for a greater good. It's made as a salacious product for Mike to star in, and it's made to appeal to the basest instincts of its audience. And...it's not actually made by Mike. (Anyone who doubts any of this is true should take a look at this "pitch doc" linked in the description, which is so awful on so many levels.)
Finally, it's hard not to think about the Steven Crowder matter, as its arguably a similar case of a man who speaks out against "political correctness" and has reportedly instigated attacks on opponents in a similar fashion. Do you think that the (arguable) rise in awareness of how influential hosts harass people they dislike (or enlist their fans to do so) might have an impact on his behavior?
I don't think anything will influence Mike's behavior unless he receives the treatment/intervention/medication/whatever else he clearly needs. And if he gets that and becomes a decent human, I can't imagine he'd want to continue the show in its current form, or engage online in any forum. A decent human being, looking back self-reflectively on behavior like Mike's, would surely want to make it up to the world by cutting ties with the internet altogether.
When They See Us has been Netflix’s top show since its premiere. That’s according to the above tweet from the streaming company, which has been notoriously close-mouthed about viewing data. When Deadline asked Netflix for more data, they declined comment. -- EB
She's exactly how @ava has portrayed her.
Speaking of When They See Us, it’s time for Today In Linda Fairstein! Author Sil Law Abrams tweeted this week that while the pair worked at a non-profit, Fairstein allegedly “pretended to be an advocate for me when she was really trying to get me to admit something that wasn't true by planting seeds in my head.” You can read her thread of tweets on the run-in here.
While we’re at it, Elizabeth Lederer, who was the lead prosecutor in the Central Park Five case, has also stepped down from her job at Columbia Law School. Lederer had been the focus of a 2013 petition calling for her resignation following The Central Park Five documentary’s release, but it appears that renewed attention on the case spurred her departure.
According to an email sent to Columbia Law students Wednesday night and reported on by the NYT, the show “reignited a painful — and vital — national conversation about race, identity, and criminal justice.” Quoting Lederer, the email said, “Given the nature of the recent publicity generated by the Netflix portrayal of the Central Park case, it is best for me not to renew my teaching application.” Lederer remains in the employ of the Manhattan district attorney’s office, and as of Thursday morning a spokesperson for DA Cyrus Vance Jr. had declined comment on her continued role there. -- EB
Oprah’s interview with the now-exonerated Central Park Five is available on Oxygen and Netflix. The interview -- along with an interview with the cast of When They See Us -- aired Wednesday night on OWN, and can now be streamed here. As expected, the men give copious praise to the series, but acknowledge that, as Kevin Richardson says, “30 years later, not too many things have changed.” -- EB
Death Becomes Us has announced its lineup. The true crime festival is planned for November 8-10 in Washington DC, and will feature Amanda Knox as a headliner. (Sidenote: Did you read Knox’s Medium piece from this week headlined “Your Content, My Life”? It’s worth a look.) There will also be live versions of Murder Squad: Jensen & Holes and BuzzFeed Unsolved. All-access passes for the fest are $150, and are available here. -- EB
Disgraceland the podcast will beget “Disgraceland” the book. As you can see from the cover above, host Jake Brennan is behind the tome, which via a press release is described as an “off-kilter, hysterical, at times macabre collection of stories from the highly entertaining underbelly of music history.” Artists discussed in the book include Elvis Presley, Sid Vicious, Gram Parsons, and Sam Cooke. — EB