'Serial' Podcast Creators To Take San Diego Audience Behind The Scenes

This is KPBS Midday Edition. I am Maureen Cavanaugh. A bring a new story to life in a way that's more riveting than fiction, the producers of the podcast Serial has found that. It's been downloaded over 100 million times. The first. The current season is about Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl who is captured and held by the Taliban for five years in Afghanistan. Creators Sarah Kinnick and Julie Schneider will be at the Balboa Theatre tonight talking about how they make the podcast. Before the most recent episodes were released, KPBS Angela Crone spoke with Kinnick about the latest season of serial. I am wondering what question you are trying to answer the season. Are you trying to understand Bergdahl is a person, his motivations for leaving his post or argue looking at looking at how does that one decision Rickett made -- ricocheted out for a number of systems and affected a number of different people? I think all of that. When I for start working on it, make question was really basic kind of you see that guy that video that guy of him getting rescued. I don't know. I think I had a reaction like a lot of people had like what happened to that guy. What is the story there. But then what happens with these projects is you start reporting in your like wait, I need to talk to some soldiers. Now I feel like need to talk to some -- now I want to talk to people at the State Department. And hold on. I think it is all of that. I think it's this question -- I think would occur to me along the way is it a minute, I don't think I understand this war very well. I don't think I understand the relationship between the public and the war. I think had it has got me interested in all of those questions of what is going on here. I think it's what you said. I am very interested in Bowe as a person and what he did and why he did it. Also the noma -- enormous repercussions of what he did. Let's talk about another facet that is different than season one. In season one used oak directly with your subject. In your conversations with him part of what made the season so compelling because we had this window into a journalist and her subject and how you manage that relationship over time with a give-and-take was like. I have to say it's a very same thing that did. I don't understand. I just think it's really unfair to meet. If you don't want to talk about this, that's your prerogative. I'm not can apportion to talk about it. Yes have not also like to see you talk about it. And I don't talk about. It's put me in a predicament. It's like your publicly shaming me for something that I never denied anyway. But you want to tell the people do. In this case you're not interviewing Bergdahl, you're working with 25 hours of tape that your dealing with. Cottager grapple with that? At first I was worried because I was wondering how I'm going to find my way into this material and care about it if I am not doing it myself. But I have to say, the more that I talked to Mark, the guy who did the interviews with both. The more I interview people who know Bowe, I felt like I am in. I care. There is something special about the tape, I think, that comes from it not be a formal interview with a reporter. At one point they told me they had to a really dark room kind of will sound like a basement like where there was no light. There is a few rooms like that. Yeah. It's like how do I explain to a person that is standing in the empty darkroom hurts. Someone asks you why does it hurt? Does your by her? Yes, your body hurts. But it's more than that. You're most confused. There's times I would wake up and is so dark. I would wake up not even remembering what I was. You know he could that feeling when the word is on the tip of your tongue? It feels like something slightly different is happening because they were not originally planned for broadcast. Okay so compelling in the tape because he is trying so hard to explain something inexplicable. For you think would be inexplicable. I think his will rare that way that he is really trying to communicate his thought process. What do you think of him? Do you think looking back at what happened in his leaving his post Todd to you think that he dismayed a superbly this bonehead mistake or do you think he had some type of break? Were you on that question right now? I think yes, he made a mistake. And I think Bowe has said it was a mistake. That there were other ways he could have dealt with his concern that he was having. It wasn't a freak out where he was like suddenly had to get out here. Of that is not what happened. That was something that he planned and he thought through. What I think is interesting what I'm going to get into still in the series is what led him to that, why he ends up making that choice. Humor is obviously really important to you. In the most recent episode you have this funny line about the tenacity of women. That gets to this tension I would like you to talk about of entertainment versus journalism and how you and the team wrestled with that, keeping with the tenants of investigative journalism while keeping it entertaining? The baseline for everything we do is really rigorous reporting and fact checking. That is the bedrock of everything. I feel like once you have that and you are confident in the material and the material is as solid as you can make it, then you have the freedom to, you know, have fun when you want to, or beast -- be experimental or try things. We could never get away with any of that if the reporting was sloppy. I think that is how we think about it. Of course you want your stories to be compelling. So that is how we try to tell stories. So it's entertaining, so it doesn't feel like a chore to get through, that you can taken this information without feeling like you are taking your medicine. We want to be delighted ourselves. If I am delighted by a piece of information are fascinated by it, I want to convey that. Would about the aspect of putting your own uncertainties and questions and opinions into the podcast that runs counter to a lot of investigative reporting is presented? Was that something that you had to get used to? I know that in "This American Live" you did that as well. Were there conversations about that? Was that something you have to wrap your head around? Yes . Especially in season one much more. There is this, as you say, the overarching question is did he or didn't he. And that is huge. I did not know. So initially I was not comfortable putting myself in it so much. It was really my -- my colleague, Julie Snyder were making episode to it wasn't good I was making these straps . It was not working. And finally she said you have to tell me what you think of this material otherwise I am not going to care. I'm bored. Your boring me. I was like oh okay. So that became something we needed it for the story. I needed to take you by the hand in this very deliberate way. I think for season two it's not very deliberate all. I think I'm in at less in a certain way. There is the question left in the Bergdahl, there is a single question the government season one. But there is kind of one of those questions in season two and that is whether Bergdahl should go to prison. Have you made up your mind about whether he should go to prison or not about what he did to? Oblique, I think I've made up my mind. But I'm not going to tell you what I think. KPBS reporter Angela Kuralt interdict -- Angela Carone. Be sure to watch KPBS tonight on KPBS television. Join us again tomorrow for KPBS Midday Edition at noon right here on KPBS FM. I am Maureen Cavanaugh. Thank you for listening