Serial - Jay speaks (part 2)

Part 2 of the three-part interview was released today.  At this point, I think we can agree that this interview is falling for short of its potential.  In the end, it's nothing more than a fluff piece as the interviewer is not asking Jay any real hard questions.  The questions that may seem tough on the surface are really just setups for Jay to express contrition and talk about how it has affected his family.  The last part seems to clearly be about the collateral damage to Jay as a result of the popularity of Serial.  We'll get there soon.

As for the interview itself, the focus centered on three topics.  First, was Jay's speculation on who provided the anonymous tip to the police.  According to Jay, based on knowledge of grand jury testimony that he really should not have, he thinks it was someone from the mosque.  Presumably, this is Bilal, who is the youth leader who is mentioned in Episode 12. 

Not really sure if this amounts to something.  Grand jury proceedings are secret if an indictment is reached, so Jay is talking about stuff that he should not have knowledge of.  I would assume this came from the prosecutor.  Of course, the editor's note states that they were able to confirm with two sources that the individual in question pled the fifth, which suggests that these proceedings are not as secret as they should be.  

The second part is basically a personal interest piece talking about Jay's inner demons about the experience.  And honestly, I really don't care.  It's good I guess he felt ashamed and embarrassed for his involvement in burying the body?  But it's not like testifying was some heroic act that redeems his past transgressions.  He stayed silent until the police found out about him and testified because he received a sweetheart deal and avoided prison.  He testified out of his self-interest, and it strikes me as really hollow when he talks about Hae's family and what they went through.  

The (I guess) most substantive topic centered around SK and the podcast's attempts to reach out to Jay.  The facts of the story seem to match up with what SK recounted in Episode 8.  At some point, Jay insinuates SK was lying:

"No, she said she was doing a radio show. They pitched it to me as an NPR radio show. I could also tell that she was uncomfortable talking to me. Her lips were quivering, and I just felt like she was lying. They were in the love seat over there [points across the room], and their body language was just making me really uncomfortable. It was confusing because they also pitched this story to me as a documentary, and they wanted to put me on video. By this time my wife was getting real upset. Our kids were crying. My wife knows about my involvement in this case. Because I eventually cooperated with the police and testified, I know that there are people back home who would consider me a snitch and would hurt me. So, for the most part, we’ve been really protective about our privacy. My wife would regularly Google my name to make sure none of my personal information would show up. So when these two women show up at my door it sent my wife into a panic. And when we asked them how they got our address, Koenig said something like, ‘Sadly, it wasn’t hard to find.’"

He also blames the podcast for "demonizing" him, although he admits he hasn't been able to listen to the podcast:

If you’re telling the truth, then what harm would it be to talk to Koenig?I am telling the truth, and look what happens when I didn’t talk to her. Look how she’s demonized me. And I feel like if I did talk to her, it would have given her twice as much ammo to twist my words. She came to my house and frightened me and my wife. Then [Julie Snyder] came out and said that I had ‘animal rage.’

So the confusing part is what did SK lie to him about?  And how did she demonize him?  If anything, the reproduced email is clear evidence that SK was exceedingly professional and up front with him.  By this point, SK (like any semi-intelligent person) saw that Jay's testimony was a bunch of crap.  So if the podcast reports on what happened, then the audience is going to reach the inevitable conclusion that Jay lied.  And once it is established Jay lied, people are going to speculate as to why he lied.  That's just the way things work.  

It seems Jay is conflating the Serial reddit with the podcast.  He hasn't listened to the podcast and I'm sure he isn't clear on what's coming from the podcast and what people are extrapolating from the events that are presented.  But here is what we know:  

• Jay was a drug dealer.
• He knew where Hae's car was.
• He admitted to helping to bury the body.
• He is the only person who can tie Adnan to the murder.
• His testimony is full of inconsistencies and his story has been definitively debunked as false.
• He received a plea deal and avoided prison time.

These are all just facts.  There is no demonizing here.  We the audience do not know Jay as a person.  And given our construction of him simply as a collection of information that we do know, he seems extremely shady.  And that's what SK was trying to tell him:  

When you ask what’s the benefit to you, it’s a little hard for me to answer, because it’s kind of a personal question specific to you, and I don’t know you enough to know the answer. But what I can tell you with confidence is that I think in the end, you’ll feel better with the end result if you’re an active voice in the story — rather than someone who’s being talked about, you get to do the talking. I think the simplest pitch I can make to you is: You have a story about what happened to you, and you should be the one to tell it.   That’s why I came to [location redacted], to ask you to tell your story. You’re in the documentary either way, so it just seems more respectful and fair to you to let you tell what happened, rather then having me piece it together from whatever I can glean from the record. On paper, in the trial transcript, you’re two-dimensional. But in real life, of course you’re more than just a state’s witness. You’re a person who went through a traumatic thing.

But now, it's too late.  The damage has already been done and our first impression of Jay are those pieces from the record... pieces that don't quite fit.  

And that seems to be the point of this interview; for him to try to tell his side of the story and make the audience view him as a person.  But this is not the way to do it.  Telling yet another story about what happened -- a story that can't possibly be true --   is the worst thing he could do.  Rather than make him seem like a person, he is just confirming what's out there:  that he keeps changing his story and the new story doesn't make sense.  

I suspect that the next part will talk about some of the things people have hypothesized.  Maybe even some of the choice material from Reddit.  And the piece will try to paint Jay's family as collateral damage to what became the biggest podcast/cultural phenomenon of the year.  But the podcast isn't to blame for this damage.  All of this can be traced back to Jay's own actions, and he only has himself to blame.