How to Track a Liar with Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story Showrunner Karen Given

The episode discussed on today's Sound Judgment is Believable: The Coco Berthmann Story. Karen worked with reporter/host Sara Ganim to create Believable. 

This episode was sponsored by Signal Hill Insights. 

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Karen Given’s takeaways
These are the takeaways from the end of the episode. For more takeaways from all of our guests, subscribe to the Sound Judgment newsletter and visit our blog. 

1. Karen set out to tell Coco Berthmann’s story as more than a basic scammer story. She wanted to investigate the social safety nets that allowed Coco’s deception to happen in the first place. It’s the concept of preventable harm: What makes for a much richer, more noteworthy and useful investigation is whether, in fact, the harm could have been prevented, by whom, and why it wasn’t. Especially with true crime, there’s a temptation to tell only a good yarn—the sensational one about the scammer. But those stories are like cotton candy — they might taste good at the time, but later you wonder why you bothered. 
    
2. Avoid creating unintended consequences. One of the most important and interesting lessons from Believable comes from the tricky line Karen and Sara walked. They needed to investigate the validity of Coco’s story without casting doubt on the stories of every sex trafficking victim, which could have done significant harm. One way they did this — that I would certainly steal if I were you — was to establish early on what is generally known about a phenomenon or a process. We need to understand what’s typical in order to get clarity on what’s not.
    
3. Storyboarding is a visual exercise. Karen’s a huge fan of sticky notes—in fact, 3M, if you’re listening, please name a line of Post-its after her. To get started, lay out your story beats on Post-its on a wall or in project management software like Trello or Asana. Trust me, you’ll be moving things around for your entire production process. Make it easy on yourself. 

Karen Given is a podcast story editor, producer and host. Her most recent project was Believable: the Coco Berthmann Story. A veteran of public radio, Karen started out as a technical director and worked her way up to executive producer and host. Along the way, she won the national Edward R. Murrow award twice, in 2007 and 2017. She also writes Narrative Beat, a free newsletter for journalists and podcast makers who want to tell better stories. 

Follow Karen Given: 

Subscribe to her newsletter, Narrative Beat

Website: Karen Given

Instagram: karengiven

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/klgiven/

Facebook: karenlgiven

If you liked my conversation with Karen Given, you’ll love: 

Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 8: The Heist: How to Produce an Award-Winning Investigative Series with Sally Herships

Sound Judgment Season 2/Episode 5: Bone Valley: How to Produce a True Crime Podcast That Makes a Difference

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The Sound Judgment team is: 
Host & Producer: Elaine Appleton Grant
Production Assistant: Audrey Nelson
Audio engineer/sound designer: Kevin Kline
Podcast manager: Tina Bassir

Sound Judgment is a production of Podcast Allies, LLC, a boutique production and consulting company making magical podcasts for NGOs and nonprofits, higher ed, and social impact organizations. 

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