Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Serial season 2: Podcast returns and premieres new story

The first episode is titled 'Dustwun'

Christopher Hooton
Thursday 10 December 2015 12:35 GMT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Serial was the soundtrack to many of our icy walks last winter, a suitably chilling story about a Baltimore teenager being potentially wrongly-implicated for the murder of his ex-girlfriend.

The Peabody-winning This American Life spin-off returned this morning, with a new serialised case revolving around former POW and accused deserter Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, again poured over by Sarah Koenig.

The first episode, titled ‘Dustwun’ (a military acronym for “duty status - whereabouts unknown"), is available now, though the Serial Podcast website seems to have crashed under the strain of listeners (Update: it seems to be back up, download the first ep here).

It is available through Pandora and other podcatchers however.

(Pic: U.S. Army)
(Pic: U.S. Army)

Bergdahl was held captive by the Taliban-aligned Haqqani network in Afghanistan from June 2009 until May 2014, when he was released as part of a prisoner exchange for five Taliban members who were being held at Guantanamo Bay.

The matter became the subject of media scrutiny, with the US Army having charged Bergdahl with one count of desertion and one count of misbehavior before the enemy.

Serial is back

The attention Serial brought to last season’s case (Adnan Syed’s conviction for killing Hae Min Lee) eventually led to the case being reopened.

The directors of The Lego Movie are now working on a TV series based around the podcast.

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in