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It was a sunny day in Might 2015 when Sarah Koenig and Dana Chivis stepped off a U.S. military-chartered airplane and arrived on the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
They have been there to study the unofficial story of Guantanamo, the place, after September 11, the U.S. authorities opened a jail to carry folks suspected of being members of the Taliban or al Qaeda.
So started a narrative that spanned practically 10 years and a whole bunch of hours of interviews.
That story is advised within the new season of Serial Productions and The New York Instances' podcast “Serial.” Over 9 episodes (the primary two drop Thursdays), the season's co-hosts Ms. Koenig and Ms. Chivavis current a mosaic of life at Guantanamo utilizing the experiences of survivors and those that served there, as Ms. Koenig stated this within the season trailer. This consists of former prisoners, guards, interrogators and extra.
“There was superb and vital reporting on this area within the space of geopolitics and policymaking,” Ms Chivvis stated. “However what we have been making an attempt to do was recreate the world of Guantanamo by means of the private tales of people that have been, lived, labored and have been imprisoned there.”
Between Ms. Koenig and Ms. Chivavis' first go to to Guantanamo in 2015 and Thursday's season premiere, there have been a number of false begins and interviews with greater than 100 folks. When Ms. Koenig and Ms. Chivvis first visited, they discovered that many sources have been hesitant to talk on the document. Some employees didn’t need to danger their careers. The previous detainees they contacted have been afraid to disclose their experiences, or just needed to maneuver on.
“Individuals will inform us actually attention-grabbing and loopy issues off the document,” Ms. Chivvis stated. “However as quickly as we turned on our microphones and caught them of their faces, they have been completely hooked.”
Their editor Julie Snyder had the concept of producing a pilot for a TV present a few fictional model of Guantanamo. He thought folks is perhaps extra candid in the event that they have been contributing based mostly on background relatively than named sources.
“That's when the loopy, lewd tales began popping out,” Ms. Koenig stated.
By 2020, he had accomplished a script for a pilot, which attracted the curiosity of a manufacturing firm. However by then, Ms. Koenig thought sufficient folks would have returned to civilian life and agreed to share these tales on the document.
“I assumed it was value a attempt,” she stated.
His guess proved right: with a number of extra years faraway from their deployment or detention, former guards and prisoners have been keen to talk out. So Ms. Chivvis and Ms. Koenig re-interviewed folks on the document. The pair additionally returned to Guantanamo in 2022. This time, they have been capable of observe and report on court docket proceedings. He performed extra interviews.
In the middle of their reporting, Ms. Chivvis and Ms. Koenig compiled a whole bunch of hours of interviews spanning practically a decade, which they wanted to form a narrative.
“We now have an unimaginable, enormous vary of tales and folks that may communicate to us on the finish of the day,” Ms. Koenig stated. “Then it was about deciding which of them to give attention to and why.”
Over the previous 12 months, the crew examined the recordings and determined to dedicate this season to the tales of particular person folks, presenting listeners with a wealthy vary of views and personalities.
“The great factor about podcasts is you hear either side,” Ms. Chivvis stated. “You hear from the detainees what it was wish to survive each day as a prisoner and you then hear from a gaggle of American service members who labored there about what life was like on the opposite aspect of the wall.” (That stated, the city was surprisingly energetic and had a vigorous occasion scene, with guards blowing off steam after their shifts at space bars. Within the season trailer, somebody even known as it “La La Land.”) Was.)
The sequence additionally examines the query of why, 15 years after President Obama signed the chief order closing the jail, it’s nonetheless open with 30 inmates. President Biden restarted the initiative to shut the jail in 2021, however progress has been gradual.
“I feel most individuals don’t take into consideration Guantanamo,” Ms. Chivvis stated. “It's a kind of issues that you simply take away in your thoughts, a web page from a historical past ebook.” However as a result of Guantanamo remains to be open, he stated, “It's probably not historical past but.”
The hope, Ms. Koenig stated, is that individuals will come away from the podcast with a renewed curiosity in Guantánamo, a spot they could not have thought of in years.
“We need to convey them to a really complicated subject in a method that’s intimate and compelling,” he stated. “I feel – I hope – that individuals will perceive Guantánamo in a method they haven't.”