It’s complicated with Crime Junkie

This week we look at Crime Junkie.

If you'd rather read the reviews, check the show out on Instagram, Twitter, or the website.

Music this week: 
Artist: COS & Effect
Song: Inside
https://soundcloud.com/cosandeffekt\
https://www.instagram.com/cosandeffekt
https://www.facebook.com/cosandeffekt

Links and sources:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/themastercast
https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/crime-junkie/id1322200189
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/crime-junkie-podcast-ashley-flowers-plagiarism-1203302072/

Transcript: 

A 50/50 review Crime Junkie - No Spoilers! 

It’s time! I’ve put off doing this review for a long time because of the complicated nature of this podcast’s impact on the podcasting world. I still have reservations about coming out and recommending it so I’m going to start what I’ve been calling 50/50 reviews for podcasts I’m on the fence about. What’s to be on the fence about? We’ll get into it in this episode of The Mastercast. 

Crime Junkie is a very popular true crime podcast produced by Ashely Flowers and Brit Prawat that covers a variety of well known and not so well known missing, murdered, and mysterious death cases. Some are solved, some or not, and I like listening to the episode not knowing which it’ll be. There is the very rare conspiracy episode but these cover crime related conspiracies not like big foot or anything. They’re more like cover ups and things of that nature. With over a billion downloads and placing consistently in the top five of various podcast charts since their debut in 2017, very popular might be an understatement. It’s as widely known as Serial, the podcast that let’s face it - got us all into true crime podcasts. There are over 412 free episodes and  new ones come out weekly on Mondays. The show has 4.7 stars and over 350,000 ratings on Apple Podcasts. That’s almost triple the amount of reviews Chartable and Rephonic report for globally beloved podcast This American Life. In addition to the public available episodes, there’s over 150 bonus episodes. To prepare for writing this review thoroughly I actually signed up for the monthly subscription that give access to them all, thinking that I would get through them in a few weeks. It’s been two months and I’ve only gotten through back to 2021. Not only are the founders good at storytelling but they’re very smart business women. Everything they do is perfectly executed to generate a profit. This includes a well organized and supplied website. Their subscription plan and separate app locks down bonus episodes. Their merch store only opens for highly anticipated limited releases. Subscriptions are tiered to allow accumulative access to bonus episodes, videos, fan meet ups, and early access to merch releases. The show also expanded to become a network with some other really good shows like Anatomy of Murder and Counterclock. Wrestling with the ethicacy of review those shows is a big reason I choose to review this one. That being said, there are plenty of great free resources on the websites! There’s the famous “If I go missing folder” template, newsletter, and craft patterns. 

Now I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the plagiarism scandal which stopped me from listening to the show for a long time. The challenge didn’t necessarily come from liking the show (although I do admit that bias) but from lack of citation standardization in the podcast community. I won’t go into much detail of the scandal’s whole story, for that I recommend the Let’s Taco ‘bout True Crime episode titled Let's Taco ‘Bout the Crime Junkie Plagiarism scandal where multiple hosts that had their work plagiarized spoke about it. But for a very short summary in 2019 the podcast was found to have clearly and knowingly plagiarized former Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter, Cathy Frye’s work. After this accusation came out, others came to the surface as well. It’s important to note that the work Crime Junkie plagiarized was not the result of one website copying another copying another, but came from boots on the ground, never heard before investigations. Frye and other spent time and money over decades. investigating these cases and Crime Junkie presented their conclusions like they were a result of their own work. While many were understandably upset by the plagiarism itself, there was the insult of no apology which was what stopped me from listening. I expected them to apologize for the action but it wasn’t until someone pointed out to me, that they probably didn’t at the advice of a lawyer, that I started to wonder if maybe they didn’t realize the gravity of what they had done. Before this is was extremely rare for a podcast to cite it’s sources, in the show notes or in the audio. It was and still is a new medium and like where art doesn’t cite its inspirations, I wasn’t sure if there was an established custom for citing sources in a podcast. Also, Crime Junkie did start doing its own work, hiring a team of reporters that investigates for the show. That being said, what Crime Junkie did was knowingly wrong, period. There are other common complaints about the show including scripted commentary from Prawatt. As Flowers tells the story, she’s there to interject with questions that that audience might be asking. It does come across as scripted and pointless at times but is meant to break up Flowers telling an hour long story. 

But that’s the complicated nature of Crime Junkie. I’ve been listening since the show started. It’s captivating and has remained on the top of the charts through all of this. They do a ton of advocacy work but the scandal when paired with their business sense makes me wonder if they’re are an option that doesn’t feed into the exploitative nature of true crime of if they are just really good at doing it. 

Similar pods: Court Junkie, This is Actually Happening, and Morbid.

As an aside the podcasts I found that were plagiarized by Crime Junkie include: Without Warning, The Murder Sheet, Trace Evidence, and Southern Fried True Crime. You should definitely check them out. 

All right, guys, that’s all for this week but remember if you want to see the cover art, sources, or the written transcript for this episode be sure to check out the show notes. You can also send us an email at themastercastpodlist@gmail.com. There you can tell us if you have music you would like played on the show or submit a podcast to be recommended. This week’s music came from COS and effect and the song is Inside. Please check out the show notes for how to find them and their music!  Remember to share the show with the pod lovers in your life and tune in next Monday. Thanks for listening.

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