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Speaker 1: Well, I actually think the competition is taking this medium

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Speaker 1: up a whole nother level, and it means that as

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Speaker 1: we're going through the contraction, we're going through the pressure.

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Speaker 1: True crime is very very much here to stay in.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 2: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Tuesday, March seventeenth, twenty

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Speaker 2: twenty six. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co

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Speaker 2: editor in chief of Variety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in

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Speaker 2: La He's in New York, and Variety has reporters around

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Speaker 2: the world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode,

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Speaker 2: we'll depart from our usual Daily Variety format to bring

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Speaker 2: you highlights of Variety's first ever True Crime Summit, held

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Speaker 2: March thirteenth at the start of the South By Southwest

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Speaker 2: Festival in Austin, Texas. We had a packed lineup of

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Speaker 2: stars of the genre, including Nancy Grace, Natalie Morales, Eva Pilgrim,

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Speaker 2: Jody Tovey, Mister Balin, and other notable producers, as well

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Speaker 2: as top executives from Investigation, Discovery, Audible, Pushkin Industries, Sony Podcasts,

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Speaker 2: and more. That was Investigation Discovery had Jason sarlanis you

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Speaker 2: heard in the Cold Open, sharing his enthusiasm for the genre.

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Speaker 2: The True Crime Summit was presented by Investigation Discovery. It

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Speaker 2: was hosted by my fabulous Variety colleagues Kate Arthur, Emily Longoretta,

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Speaker 2: Ethan Schanfeld, and Variety's co president and publisher Da Lawrence,

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Speaker 2: who is a very big fan of true crime. You

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Speaker 2: can find the full video for all of the day's

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Speaker 2: sessions at Variety dot com and on Variety's YouTube page.

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Speaker 2: We'll start here with a quick conversation with Longeretta, who

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Speaker 2: is Director of Features for Variety, about what the mood

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Speaker 2: was like in Austin as like minded fans gathered to

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Speaker 2: dissect the reasons why we can't stop watching and listening

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Speaker 2: to true crime. Emily, you are our resident expert in

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Speaker 2: many subjects around Variety, and one of them is true crime.

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Speaker 2: You are a big true crime book as am I,

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Speaker 2: and so I know you had to be in your

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Speaker 2: element this past Friday, It's outh by Southwest when Variety

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Speaker 2: hosted its first ever true Crime Summit with a host

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Speaker 2: of big players in the genre. What was the buzz,

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Speaker 2: what was the vibe like? At the event this past weekend.

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Speaker 3: It was such a fun summon and there were so

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Speaker 3: many great conversations. They kicked off with Nancy Grace, who

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Speaker 3: obviously is a very big expert in this world and

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Speaker 3: has had a lot of great opinions about what's going

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Speaker 3: on in so many different cases. But we also had

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Speaker 3: handles with investigative reporters, people from mister Ballin to a

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Speaker 3: Wall Street journal telling her own story, and people who

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Speaker 3: had been also had been a citizen detective who had

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Speaker 3: their own became a victim of their own crime and

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Speaker 3: then kind of turned it to help other people. And

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Speaker 3: that's something that every single director or reporter on these

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Speaker 3: pannels talked about the importance of forming trust, not only

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Speaker 3: with the audience, but also with the subjects and with

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Speaker 3: whether it's the victims, whether it's the person committing the crimes.

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Speaker 3: So it's important when you're watching these incredible documentaries like

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Speaker 3: Black and Skyking that came out here at south By,

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Speaker 3: and we had their directors in our summit. There's so

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Speaker 3: much time and energy that goes into that.

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Speaker 2: The endless debate around true crime is why are we

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Speaker 2: so obsessed with it? Were there any observations, any comments,

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Speaker 2: any discussions that just brought insight to you in terms

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Speaker 2: of why we're so obsessed with true crime.

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Speaker 3: I think we all ask that question all the time.

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Speaker 3: I've asked myself that why I am so obsessed with it.

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Speaker 3: I think that one of the big things that was

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Speaker 3: said on our panel about true crime fan favorites was

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Speaker 3: that because some of these people, I mean certainly these

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Speaker 3: shows like Evil Lives Here on ID has been on

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Speaker 3: for eighteen seasons, and I asked like, well, why.

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Speaker 2: Do you think it still is?

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Speaker 3: And Kevin Fitzpatrick, who's the executive producer that was on

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Speaker 3: our panel, was explaining that in today's world, more than ever,

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Speaker 3: we are desperate for answers and we're desperate for the truth.

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Speaker 3: So people turn this on just hoping that they can

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Speaker 3: have a resolution to these stories, and that sometimes it's

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Speaker 3: a comfort knowing that there's a resolution.

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Speaker 4: Now.

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Speaker 3: Of course, sadly, not every true crime story has a resolution,

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Speaker 3: and we all know most of them are.

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Speaker 1: Not happy endings.

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Speaker 3: But every now and then there ares so a lot

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Speaker 3: of this is hearing a really powerful story and people,

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Speaker 3: you know, want to relate to other people and hear

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Speaker 3: the truth and hear from families and you can relate

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Speaker 3: to any story.

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Speaker 2: And I think that's that's the bottom line of it. Now,

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Speaker 2: we'll kick it off with Variety's Day of Lawrence sitting

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Speaker 2: down with Nancy Grace, the prosecutor turned TV host and

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Speaker 2: true crime investigator. This was a strong cup of coffee

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Speaker 2: to start the day. They went right for it on

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Speaker 2: the most current IRL drama, the Disappearance of Nancy Guthrie.

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Speaker 2: You can find that entire video on Variety dot com.

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Speaker 2: Here we offer a clip of Grace and Lawrence talking

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Speaker 2: about the vidible case of Corey Richins, the Utah woman

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Speaker 2: who was convicted just on Monday of murder and forgery

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Speaker 2: for poisoning her husband.

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Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the Moscow mule.

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Speaker 5: Oh Cory Richards, So I didn't hell a woman? Does

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Speaker 5: everyone know this case? Do you want to just fill

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Speaker 5: everybody in a very Richins not only murdered her husband

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Speaker 5: with an overdose of fentanyl, so everyone would believe not

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Speaker 5: only he's dead, but he killed himself because he's a

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Speaker 5: dope head with little boys yet to be raised now

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Speaker 5: without their father. She then went on to write a

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Speaker 5: book about how to help your child cope with grieving

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Speaker 5: and go on a televised circuit. Okay, that may have

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Speaker 5: been her downfall because if people weren't paying attention to

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Speaker 5: it before, then they went what so yes, Corey Richins.

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Speaker 5: And it wasn't the first time either. She had reportedly

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Speaker 5: tried to poison him in a sandwich.

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Speaker 1: Watch out, David.

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Speaker 6: I watch a lot of crime shows, and it seems

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Speaker 6: like when women want to kill their husbands, there are like, Hi, honey,

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Speaker 6: have a cop tell you know, have some soup and

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Speaker 6: it's laced with antifreeze.

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Speaker 7: So that would be Lynn Turner not only husband, but

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Speaker 7: boyfriend too. Anti frase in jell O.

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Speaker 6: How does anyone think they can get away with murder?

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Speaker 7: Because it can look very much like a heart attack

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Speaker 7: and you don't naturally assume murder. But in this case,

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Speaker 7: the family of the victim through such a fit. They

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Speaker 7: did a drug panel and that's how it was discovered.

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Speaker 2: Next up, my colleague Ethan Schanfeld moderated a sharp conversation

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Speaker 2: about the overall boom in the business of true crime content,

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Speaker 2: from movies and TV series to podcasts and micro dramas.

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Speaker 2: You'll hear first from Jody Tovey, host of the podcast

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Speaker 2: Wisecrack and head of her Star White Productions banner. Her

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Speaker 2: successful podcast produced by Tenderfoot TV and iHeartMedia, proves that

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Speaker 2: the genre knows no bounds.

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Speaker 8: Jody, can you talk about the tone of wisecrack and

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Speaker 8: blending stand up comedy and true crime, which I don't

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Speaker 8: think many people would associate the two of those things together.

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Speaker 4: For those who haven't listened, it's a double homicide that

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Speaker 4: was committed in rural England in twenty fifteen, but the

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Speaker 4: eyewitness account is told in a sixty minute stand up set, right,

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Speaker 4: So it's an entertaining professional entertainer who was an eyewitness

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Speaker 4: account to this adjacent to his home side.

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Speaker 9: I think most people in this room and in the

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Speaker 9: green room said no to my project, so but you know,

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Speaker 9: I will say that, you know, you hope that you

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Speaker 9: take the ven diagram of comedy fans and crime fans

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Speaker 9: and you expand it rather than shrink it. Right now,

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Speaker 9: there's only two people listening to what you're doing, and

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Speaker 9: I think that was really challenging asking broadcasters, originally streamers

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Speaker 9: and now podcasters to do that. So, you know, I

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Speaker 9: was very grateful obviously that Tenderfoot and My Heart were

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Speaker 9: interested in trying to in trying to do that because

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Speaker 9: it was really tricky and you know, it took ten

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Speaker 9: years to convince people to do it.

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Speaker 2: Next up, a discussion on the ethics of true crime

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Speaker 2: as a cottage industry. You'll hear from David Carabinis, who

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Speaker 2: heads Texas Crew Productions, a prolific shop that does shows

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Speaker 2: for Netflix, Hulu, Peacock, History, Discovery Plus, and Oxygen. Also

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Speaker 2: joining the conversation our Kate Novin, head of North American

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Speaker 2: Development for Audible, Inside Edition host Eva Pilgrim, and Jonathan Hirsch,

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Speaker 2: vice president of Global Podcasts for Sony Music.

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Speaker 8: I want to ask about the ethics of true crime.

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Speaker 8: You're obviously dealing with stories that involve real victims, real families.

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Speaker 8: What is the responsibility of telling these stories?

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Speaker 10: Well, I think most of the time, you know, a

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Speaker 10: lot of the well we've always found is that so

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Speaker 10: many of the families of victims they want answers or

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Speaker 10: they just want people to understand what was lost here,

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Speaker 10: you know, because I think one of the things we

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Speaker 10: all do, we're always very respectful ultimately of the victims,

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Speaker 10: and we want to bring those victims to life through

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Speaker 10: our storytelling. And I think by doing that, we end

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Speaker 10: up honoring them quite a bit. And again, like I said,

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Speaker 10: in a way, just making sure that the people are

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Speaker 10: consuming this they really understand the gravity of the crime

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Speaker 10: and what was taken.

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Speaker 9: Away, and also the longevity of the impact.

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Speaker 11: Like I think one of the things that true crime

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Speaker 11: presents is like it happened on a day, and then

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Speaker 11: for years and years and years and years, you're an

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Speaker 11: active investigation, You're dealing with trials, and I think being

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Speaker 11: able to remind people that it's the impact is so

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Speaker 11: much more than the day that the thing happened is

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Speaker 11: something that they greatly value.

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Speaker 12: Yeah, because he's not like the children of these people, right,

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Speaker 12: maybe we're young at the time that something occurred, but

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Speaker 12: their only sort of real sense of what it is

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Speaker 12: is the thing that they look back at, which is,

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Speaker 12: you know, whatever it is.

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Speaker 1: That you've created.

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Speaker 13: In doing limited series, you have the privilege you too,

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Speaker 13: just being a a little bit behind the news here,

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Speaker 13: so we can kind of evaluate some of these stories

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Speaker 13: and the long tail impact of it.

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Speaker 2: I did a.

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Speaker 13: Series in December where I approached a family a woman

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Speaker 13: had been murdered in Georgia. It was called Watching You,

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Speaker 13: and the family had had an opportunity to tell their

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Speaker 13: story and a variety of different arenas back when this

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Speaker 13: had happened in twenty eleven, and by the time I

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Speaker 13: came to them cognizant of the fact that there were

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Speaker 13: so many other opportunities to bring nuance and honestly in

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Speaker 13: integrity and care to the story of their mother and

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Speaker 13: their sister who had been murdered. They were like Initially

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Speaker 13: were like you can literally They're like, you sound really nice,

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Speaker 13: but you can also kick rocks because they didn't want

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Speaker 13: to go through that again. But then in the process

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Speaker 13: of having conversations with each member of the family and

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Speaker 13: talking them through how I saw an opportunity for us

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Speaker 13: to revisit the limited coverage that had been offered at

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Speaker 13: the time about their story. I think it awoke in

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Speaker 13: them a sense that there was also mission here too

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Speaker 13: for the record to tell their story and their family story,

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Speaker 13: even if it's the worst moment. I mean, who couldn't

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Speaker 13: want truth more than people have been a victim of

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Speaker 13: a violent crime, right, So I think there's an opportunity

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Speaker 13: there to revisit a great many stories in cases that

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Speaker 13: haven't deeply been covered or the medium's changed so we

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Speaker 13: have more opportunity to tell them in different ways.

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Speaker 2: Here we'll get some perspective from Inside Edition host Eva

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Speaker 2: Pilgrim on what it is that fuels the megafandom of

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Speaker 2: true crime.

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Speaker 12: I wasn't sure what the audience was really into, because

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Speaker 12: as a journalist covering some of these things, I would

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Speaker 12: get inundated with like micro detail way in the weeds,

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Speaker 12: like they've clearly consumed everything that exists out there about

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Speaker 12: this one story, and I'm just like, this is my

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Speaker 12: whole life.

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Speaker 1: How is this your life?

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Speaker 12: Like You've got a job and a family and other

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Speaker 12: things to do. So my mind was sort of blown

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Speaker 12: about it. And I saw this point on the prep

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Speaker 12: sheet email that went around, so I just was like,

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Speaker 12: you know, I've never asked the people who watch what

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Speaker 12: they think, so I just throw it up on social

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Speaker 12: media and it was one. You know, the majority of

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Speaker 12: the audience is very female. It's like a true crime

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Speaker 12: is a very female audience. If you've ever been to

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Speaker 12: crime con, you've seen them all women everywhere, and they're

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Speaker 12: women my age we grew up on like Nancy Drew.

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Speaker 12: That was one of the things is like the way

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Speaker 12: we were conditioned even to read It's like we were

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Speaker 12: solving mysteries as teenagers, right. Some of it was about control.

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Speaker 12: I got that response a lot, this idea that the

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Speaker 12: world is scary, and if I consume all of this

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Speaker 12: true crime, that I will maybe have something in my

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Speaker 12: head that will help me or help my family member,

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Speaker 12: that sort of you know, we all know someone who's

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Speaker 12: a victim of a crime. Some of it was just escapism,

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Speaker 12: and most of them wanted a solution. They wanted to

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Speaker 12: be able to listen from start to finish, to know

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Speaker 12: exactly what happened and how it was going to end.

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Speaker 12: And I was floored. They wanted to know all the processes.

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Speaker 1: It was like all the stuff that they.

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Speaker 12: Were telling me in these random instant story comments, I

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Speaker 12: was like, they there's so much more good about how

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Speaker 12: they're approaching it. That isn't actually like just as we

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Speaker 12: sometimes refer to it, like in newsrooms, it's not just

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Speaker 12: murder porn. They actually care about these people and the

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Speaker 12: lives that have been affected. They're like deeply invested in

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Speaker 12: what happens to, you know, the people who are part

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Speaker 12: of these stories.

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Speaker 2: Now the conversation will shift to a session moderated by

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Speaker 2: Emily Longeretta about the network that is a true crime

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Speaker 2: destination and know they never seem to run out of material.

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Speaker 2: At Investigation Discovery. First, we'll hear from Mary Robertson, producer

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Speaker 2: of the ID docuseriies Quiet on Set that caused such

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Speaker 2: a stir in twenty twenty four. She's followed by Christine Douglas,

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Speaker 2: producer of Lost Women of Alaska and head of Momentum Content.

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Speaker 14: With Quiet on Set, there was a curiosity that sparked

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Speaker 14: our initial investigation. Jason and the wonderful folks that I

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Speaker 14: D came on board very quickly. Jason was an incredibly

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Speaker 14: passionate supporter of the project who understood immediately the potential,

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Speaker 14: inherent and the material in our approach. So you build

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Speaker 14: your spreadsheets, you build your list of contacts, you build

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Speaker 14: your timelines, and you work from the outside inn and

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Speaker 14: at every interval you are working to create and foster trust.

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Speaker 14: And I think I've been thinking a lot about trust

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Speaker 14: these days. I spend so much of my days engaged

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Speaker 14: in this exercise of fostering and building trust with the

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Speaker 14: people who we are asking to and trust their most ranching,

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Speaker 14: most important, most significant stories. We're asking them to hand

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Speaker 14: these over to us. I think some of it is

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Speaker 14: an intuitive connection. I think previous work means so very much,

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Speaker 14: and I'm so lucky to have been working with the

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Speaker 14: folks at I d now across several projects, and now

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Speaker 14: when I'm in conversations about building trust with contributors, they

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Speaker 14: look at these previous works. So they look at Quiet

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Speaker 14: on Set, and they look at the Fall of Diddy

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Speaker 14: and they say, I see that your treatment of your

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Speaker 14: contributors was sensitive, and I see the cultural impact that

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Speaker 14: those works had, and so I'm ready to come to you.

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Speaker 3: I love that you brought up the importance of trust

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Speaker 3: because I think that that could be a theme that

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Speaker 3: no matter what panel is up here talking about your

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Speaker 3: crime Christina, for you bringing back Lost Women and the

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Speaker 3: Lost Women franchise, I mean, how much did that go

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Speaker 3: into that, the trust that it takes to dive into

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Speaker 3: that and I have these women tell their stories.

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Speaker 15: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely.

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Speaker 16: So this season was focused on a case of Indigenous

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Speaker 16: women and courage being murdered and the other side of

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Speaker 16: it a story of a remarkable women who fought for

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Speaker 16: their justice, And you know, I think that really is

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Speaker 16: something that was lost in a lot of the media

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Speaker 16: that was covered in Anchorage at the time when this

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Speaker 16: case first came about in twenty nineteen, it was so

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Speaker 16: hyper focused on the perpetrator and we really weren't getting

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Speaker 16: the story of the victims, you know, who they were,

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Speaker 16: and we were losing the story of the women who

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Speaker 16: actually brought forth justice that got him locked up in

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Speaker 16: prison for two hundred and twenty six years. And so,

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Speaker 16: you know, going into these communities, it's not when you're

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Speaker 16: working with any survivor community or any underrepresented community, it's

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Speaker 16: not easy to automatically gain that trust. Of course, they're

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Speaker 16: going to have their hesitations about it, and you know,

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Speaker 16: I mean for me and my team, it was really

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Speaker 16: about doing our research before even calling them, right before

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Speaker 16: even walking or taking a flight to Anchorage, really understanding

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Speaker 16: where they're coming from as much as we can. But

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Speaker 16: then when we actually get there, I think it's a

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Speaker 16: matter of bringing with you an immense respect for the nuance,

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Speaker 16: the history, the context of the survivors and of these

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Speaker 16: victims and of this community that I think you just

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Speaker 16: you cannot know unless you've lived it.

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Speaker 2: Now we'll hear from Ellie Hakami principle of Talo's films

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Speaker 2: and producer of the series The Cult Behind the Killer

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Speaker 2: the Andrea Yates Story, Hakami addresses the extra challenges that

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Speaker 2: come with dealing with cases that involve celebrities. Mary Robertson

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Speaker 2: chimes in, and so does Investigation Discovery chief Jason sarlanis.

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Speaker 15: The celebrity stories, what's challenging about that is just how

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Speaker 15: much attention is the story brings to itself? Right, So

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Speaker 15: you're starting in a place where there is a lot

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Speaker 15: of media attention from the jump, and so I think

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Speaker 15: that the challenge there is what are we bringing to

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Speaker 15: this story that the media hasn't covered? And I think

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Speaker 15: that that's a particular challenge when we.

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Speaker 1: Tackle stories that have celebrity at the center of it.

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Speaker 15: I think part of it is also that because some

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Speaker 15: of the stories that we tackle are very widely covered,

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Speaker 15: and the news media is happening so fast that there's

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Speaker 15: a bit of a story over here that's been covered,

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Speaker 15: and a bit of a story over here that's been covered,

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Speaker 15: and a bit of a story over here that's covered.

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Speaker 15: And sometimes I think our job is, let's tell it

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Speaker 15: as a collective whole, and how is that story different

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Speaker 15: as a collective whole than it is when you receive

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Speaker 15: fragments of it so quickly, when you sit down.

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Speaker 2: For three hours and observe the story.

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Speaker 14: I would also draft off of that and say totally agree.

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Speaker 14: There is so much conspiracy around these large celebrity stories

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Speaker 14: as well. There's curiosity and there's conspiracy. And I think

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Speaker 14: that our viewers, our audience, all of us want some

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Speaker 14: authoritative entity to offer resolute answers and to separate fact

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Speaker 14: from fiction, and that's one of the services that we

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Speaker 14: can provide. I also think that our goal and our

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Speaker 14: obligation is to get it right. So it's not to

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Speaker 14: be TMZ, it's to get it right. And it's also

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Speaker 14: to bring real, honest, illumination and revelation to a story

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Speaker 14: that might be shrouded in mystery or confused by conspiracy.

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Speaker 1: It's so confusing though, in terms of when you're sitting

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Speaker 1: in my seat and a news story like that breaks,

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Speaker 1: eighty different producers and filmmakers come to you with the

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Speaker 1: same story, and so you just have to go, okay, eight,

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Speaker 1: are we the right place to tell the story? As

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Speaker 1: the leader in true crime, we often are, And so

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Speaker 1: then we have to say, who do we want to

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Speaker 1: tell this story with? What are the elements. And it's

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Speaker 1: often because the great filmmakers that you see next to

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Speaker 1: me or some of the other people we get to

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Speaker 1: work with come to the table with tremendous access to

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Speaker 1: the story. They're out there fighting seventeen other production companies,

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Speaker 1: other filmmakers to get people to say yes to be

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Speaker 1: willing to contribute to the story.

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Speaker 2: As we close out today's episode, we're looking ahead to Wednesday,

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Speaker 2: March eighteenth, and the baton handoff at Disney from Bob

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Speaker 2: Iger to Josh Tomorrow. This will happen during Disney's annual

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Speaker 2: shareholders meeting. My colleague Todd Spangler has taken a long

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Speaker 2: look at Iiger's more than fifty year career in media

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Speaker 2: in a story that just went up this morning on

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Speaker 2: Variety dot Com. Thanks for listening. This episode was written

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Speaker 2: and reported by me Cynthia Littleton, with contributions from Emily Longeretta,

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Speaker 2: Ethan Shanfeld, and Da Lawrence Stick Snaxt Hick Picks. Please

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Speaker 2: leave us a review at the podcast platform of your choice,

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Speaker 2: and please tune in tomorrow for another episode of Daily

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Speaker 2: Variety