Podcaster producer Darrell Brown believes the ethics of true crime podcasts “don’t always seem that important to the listeners”.
Brown, Managing Director of the podcast production company What’s the Story? Sounds, was speaking at Leeds Trinity University’s Journalism and Media Week. He said the hugely popular genre is first and foremost “there to entertain” but added that his company is keen to ensure that there is always a “level of consideration for the victims”.
What’s The Story’s first show, The Missing, was reviewed by The Guardian who called it a “Ethically sound addition to the true crime genre”. Brown said that making ethical shows has been a key issue for him since his days as a producer on TV documentaries: “The second or third true crime documentary I made, we promised the family of the victim that we’d sit and watch it with them before release.
“There was a point in the programme which I realised we could have done a bit more sensitively. When editing now, I always try to think ‘what if the family were in the room?’”
Founded in 2020, What’s the Story? Sounds has released over twenty podcast series across various genres, with most of the content produced by the company being true crime, which has become one of the most popular genres for non-fiction across TV and radio, as well as podcasts.
According to OFCOM data from 2022, 61% of female podcast listeners consume the genre weekly, compared to 51% of men. When asked why it has become so popular, Brown said that “We like to see these things that really did happen, to understand why they happened but also to reassure us that they didn’t happen to us.”
He also explained some of the reasons why the company have been able to stand out in such a competitive market. Although Brown described true crime as “massively oversaturated”, he also said that this should not be seen as a barrier to entry because “everyone has a different voice.”
He highlighted the company’s forensic science show Smoking Gun: “Most of the episodes we’ve done must have been covered on other podcasts, but our point of difference is that we have a forensic scientist hosting, so there’s a real expertise”.
What’s The Story? Sound’s newest offering is Did the Furbys Spy on Us?, a true crime parody on BBC Sounds hosted by comedian Joanne McNally.