By far, the biggest news in Podcastland today is the Crime Junkie story.
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Journalists and podcasters have been calling out the Crime Junkie podcast (not to be confused with the Court Junkie podcast) for plagiarism and not citing other people's work in their episode research.
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Instead of addressing the problem, it seems that the hosts of Crime Junkie have instead quietly deleted the questionable episodes from its feed.
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All of this blew up while the biggest podcasting conference of the year, Podcast Movement, was being held in Florida. Ironically, one of the hosts of Crime Junkie was slated to speak about "How to make a living from your independent podcast."
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As far as I know, the hosts still haven't made an official comment regarding the accusations. As of this morning, even the New York Times has written about it, so I imagine that it's only a matter of time before a) the hosts speak out and/or b) they are hit with a lawsuit.
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Looking for the important takeaway from all this?
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At this point, it's this: Don't stop listening to all your fave true crime podcasts.
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True crime is not the only niche that faces this potential problem. There are thousands of business and history podcasts, books, and movies out there that also source their topics and facts from other people's research. There's nothing inherently wrong with that, per se, as long as they're citing their sources and aren't outright plagiarizing content. (Crime Junkie seems to
be guilty of not citing in the recordings or in episode notes, as well as reading word-for-word from other people's work.)
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I try to keep my eyes and ears open when listening, reading, and certainly when scrolling through Facebook & Twitter, reminding myself that not every idea is an original one.
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I'll keep you updated on this whole Crime Junkie situation when more unfolds.