ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the ethics that Serial suggests has its basis in an ethics of desire inextricably bound to its structure. Serial is not simply a crime drama, told meticulously, or simply entertainment rooted in hard fact. It instantiates its own ethics, an ethics that prior journalistic and documentary models do not help to elucidate. Michel Foucault's work on ethics focuses on the necessity of a relationship with another as the basis for truth telling. Serial intervenes at the unexpected intersections of narrative and the law, journalism and desire, ethics and seriality. It has been hailed for pioneering a new journalistic format and for saving an old one. Perhaps the most enticing and disquieting element for some listeners has been the narrative aspect of the series. Even Koenig tries to separate herself from the intersection of narrative and law that subtends Serial.
