Victims retraumatized and perpetrators glorified: The ethical reckoning of true crime

USA Today

9 hours ago

On Sunday's episode of The Excerpt podcast: True crime is wildly popular—but at what cost? Journalist and author Kate Winkler Dawson joins The Excerpt to explore the ethical dilemmas behind the genre, from who gets to tell the story to how creators can avoid retraumatizing victims.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.Dana Taylor:
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True crime dominates our feeds. It tops podcast charts, fills our Netflix queues, and for millions of Americans, it's a favorite genre, part mystery, part courtroom drama, part cultural phenomenon. But beneath the gripping narratives is a deeper debate. Who gets to tell these stories, whose voices are amplified, and at what cost?
Hello, and welcome to USA Today's The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Sunday, June 29th, 2025. Today we're taking a closer look at the ethics behind true crime. I'm joined now by Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalism professor at the University of Texas, and a true crime author herself to unpack where true crime goes wrong and how it might finally be reckoning with its own dark side. Thanks for joining me, Kate.
Kate Winkler Dawson:
Thanks for having me.
Dana Taylor:
What are the most common ethical pitfalls you see in true crime media today, whether in podcasts, documentaries, or streaming series?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
I think sensationalizing the killer is a really, really big one. I work for the National Center for Victims of Crime, and they say that what they see the most, I think is sensationalism, ignoring the victim's families, not asking for permission to tell those stories. Gratuitous detail, particularly in things like sexual assault, murder of a child, we see a lot of that pop up. And I think we're at a real inflection point with our audiences, because my audiences are mostly women, a lot of them are survivors, they're all advocates, and we have a lot of content creators on the other hand who are not policed by anyone. So you have a lot of, I think, disrespectful content floating around there, and the listeners are quite upset about a lot of the stuff that's out there.
Dana Taylor:
Kate, how do you separate accountability journalism around crime from true crime entertainment?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
I think it's difficult because I hate to call it entertainment, even though I know that that's what I think people can see it as. And I do think that there are content creators that really do aim to get those clicks, and it doesn't really matter whether it hurts the victim's families, whether it disrespects the memory of these people.
But I think also there is a large group of content creators, authors, filmmakers, podcasters who want to be responsible, and I often look to the journalists for that kind of guidance. My favorite podcasts and my favorite books out there are done by journalists because we're trained specifically to look at all different sides, to not victim shame. And so I think it's a balance of how do you tell a creative story and keep an audience's attention while still delivering what I think would be a really good ethical message.
Dana Taylor:
Some creators argue they're raising awareness by telling these stories, and we just want to acknowledge that USA Today and the Gannett Network has a long history of covering crime, but we also have strict ethical guidelines as to how we report these kinds of stories. Is that a valid defense when victims' families say they feel retraumatized or misrepresented?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
Well, I think you could separate those two, and I think USA Today does a great job on that, where you are still respecting the victim's families and amplifying their message, which oftentimes centers around things that just don't organically come up in our debates over themes in society: domestic violence, racial inequality, particularly with the justice system. Like I said, glorifying the serial killers, if you do that and you talk to families and there's a balance, much of the time, I've found families respond to that, they want that amplified. But at the same time, there are content creators who dismiss that because they feel like it's a public story, "I have the right to tell that story." Technically you do, but it's not ethical. And true crime creators who do that, you're the one who has to go to sleep at night.
Dana Taylor:
A number of critics have pointed out that true crime tends to disproportionately center on white female victims. Are Black and Native American stories being overlooked, and if so, why?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
I think that's true, and I think that that's historically the case. I work mostly in 1800s, 1900s, and I will say we work really hard. I work really hard on finding stories about people of color, LGBTQ folks, anyone who's underrepresented in true crime. And it's very difficult for my time periods because a lot of crimes against people of color weren't reported in these time periods. I don't have the record, so I have to work even harder. For people who report on contemporary cases, I think it's as difficult in some ways because if we're thinking about who the true crime consumer is, it's heavily skewed white, heavily skewed women, and whether this is true or not, research says that they want to see kind of a reflection of themselves. I don't know if that's true or not, that's not what I've found, but I think you also report on your community and who you are, and the majority of true crime creators are not of color.
Dana Taylor:
What responsibility do storytellers have when it comes to representing perpetrators accurately, especially in cases where the approach can veer into glamorization or mythmaking, even if that's inadvertent?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
I think that that is a really fine line, and it's something I walk along all the time. I've certainly written books and done podcasts that focus in on the killer, but I don't use phrases like, "He was charming, he was handsome, he was brilliant. How could someone pull this off? This is the only serial killer who could have done this." I do talk about their backgrounds because you come back to the social issues: was there abuse in their background? Were there things that could have been triggers that we could watch out for?
And a lot of times it comes back to you. We have to protect our children, nurture them, give them support because they could become victims or they could become perpetrators. And so I think that there's, like I said, people want to know why somebody does the things that they do, these awful things that you can't even imagine, but I think the way you describe it should be in a very responsible way. Less about the gruesome details, "How could they pull this off? This was amazing." Versus more like, "What were the situations that were happening," the dynamics that we see reflected in all parts of society.
Dana Taylor:
Are there any industry efforts or academic frameworks that are trying to establish ethical standards for true crime storytelling? And if so, are they gaining any traction?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
I think so. As I said, I work with the National Center for Victims of Crime. They're working in developing guidance that hopefully would turn into legislation that would require true crime creators to actually say at the beginning of, let's say, a true-crime documentary that the family did not sign on to this. So almost an unauthorized biography of what's about to happen, whether that's Menendez brothers or any of these sort of touchstones in true crime that we've seen these stories told over and over again.
They've also published a fantastic guide that tells you how to be a responsible, true crime creator and a responsible true crime consumer. And so you do see these efforts, but I think the efforts to me are more organic. It's let's support those people, the authors, the bloggers, the people who put things on, streamers, the people who are doing podcasts, support those people who pass the smell test for you. I mean, consumers are very savvy. They know when somebody is victim shaming. Don't listen to those people, don't subscribe, and that's the only way that you can really change something that's almost grassroots.
Dana Taylor:
Controversies around podcasts like Crime Junkie, which was accused of plagiarism and fictionalized series like Baby Reindeer on Netflix, which raised pretty serious privacy concerns, has sparked debate about privacy, sourcing and defamation. What legal or ethical lines do you think are most often crossed?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
For me, the biggest one is approaching the families without permission, publishing things that would retraumatize, not caring what their opinion is, skewing the facts so that it's more exciting. I have grappled many times, particularly with stories about sexual assault, about how much detail you go into. Retraumatizing my listeners, that's the last thing I want to do, or my readers.
And so I think you do hear a lot of gratuitous stuff that to me just makes my stomach churn, where I think most people know how traumatizing a sexual assault would be. You can imagine that. There's no need to go over it over and over again in great detail just because it's salacious and people will click on it. Things that crime consists of, the violence, the blood, the fear, all of that, when you amp it up for an audience, I think that that really is what crosses a line for me.
Dana Taylor:
Well, true crime is often criticized for its sensationalism. There have been cases where documentaries or podcasts have helped exonerate wrongfully convicted individuals or push courts to reexamine old cases, such as with the Netflix series, Making a Murderer. What do you think makes these projects effective in driving real world justice, and where's the line between advocacy and entertainment?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
You're going back to the heart of what we're trying to figure out I think in this genre, is: how far is too far? And I certainly think we've seen quite a few exonerations that have happened because of these different content creators. We look at Serial and as you mentioned, Making a Murderer, and I think that a lot of that is really good reporting, and that can be debatable based on whatever you're watching. Anything that you produce in true crime, you can go back and look at and say, "I should have done this a little bit better."
You have to be thorough. You have to look at both sides of the story. Ideally, you would interview victims, you would interview police lawyers, and if the perpetrator is still alive, that person. But the exonerations, I think we see, and I advocate for this because these people are victims who are truly innocent. You're humanizing them. You're saying, "This is how the person got into this situation," whether it is police incompetence or framing or just bad luck or witnesses lying. It's a situation where you have to show to an audience why this person got into this situation, how they're trying to get out of it, and how they were wronged, and I think that's what really, really encourages people to advocate even more. It's every good point of storytelling. It's humanizing the people who are in the story.
Dana Taylor:
There's a growing call for victim-centered storytelling. What does that actually look like in practice and how can creators balance narrative tension with compassion and care?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
Again, that is something I grapple with all the time. The last book that I wrote centers all about, focused almost totally on the victim, who was a woman from the 1800s who was found hanging from a haystack pole and a Methodist minister was accused of murdering her. Yes, I paid attention to the minister. I had to give an overview of who this person was, but I really delved into the letters from the victim to the perpetrator, to her family. And I think it's a compelling narrative when you combine that with really good scene setting and family members who give their opinion, who humanize that person.
My goal is, by the end of the book, to not say, "This is my favorite killer, this person." My goal is, "I wish this person got justice," or "I'm glad that they got justice." And to me, that can equal something as fascinating as really, really digging into the mind and this psyche of somebody who's murdered someone.
Dana Taylor:
Do you think audiences have a role to play in demanding more ethical content?
Kate Winkler Dawson:
Absolutely. I'm hopeful that audiences will continue to look towards the responsible content creators and really help amplify their voices. I am constantly recommending excellent podcasts, and I teach a true crime podcast course at the University of Texas. My students listen to ethical podcasts and we talk about why, why this is ethical. There's no victim shaming. They're talking to everyone. They can back up their details. The stories don't feel like out of bounds. They're respecting the boundaries of the families, and maybe they don't get as many clicks as another podcast that promises a story that is leading the headlines, and they have almost no details, but they do have the salacious stuff that everyone's looking for. And I think the more true crime content that's responsible that we can support, the better it's going to be.
Dana Taylor:
Kate, thank you for being on The Excerpt.
Kate Winkler Dawson:
Thank you for having me.
Dana Taylor:
Thanks to our senior producers, Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan for their production assistance. Our executive producer is Laura Beatty. Let us know what you think of this episode by sending a note to [e-mail].
Thanks for listening. I'm Dana Taylor. Taylor Wilson will be back tomorrow morning with another episode of USA Today's The Excerpt.