The Creative Nonfiction Podcast with Brendan O'Meara Episode 505: Leah Sottile and Ryan Haas Talk 'Hush', Investigative Reporting, and Breaking New Trail in Their Careers
"We always were having conversations about, if we can't solve it, what then? What is this about? Why isn't it solved? And what is our job? Is the job of a journalist to solve crimes? No, it's to document. So what are we documenting? We're documenting what had to happen for there to be no answer in a situation where there should be an answer," says Leah Sottile, reporter, writer, Hush.
"Sometimes making yourself uncomfortable is the way to find new creativity, or to challenge yourself to find a smart idea within that," says Ryan Haas, reporter, producer.
Today we’ve got a fun one with CNF Pod regular Leah Sottile, investigative journalist, podcaster, author of Blazing Eye Sees All and When the Moon Turns to Blood.
And we also have her long-time collaborative partner Ryan Haas. They are primarily here to talk about season 2 of Hush, an incredible series put out by Oregon Public Broadcasting that chronicles how a small town has, to date, failed to bring closure on the death of 18-year-old Sarah Zuber in 2019. The red herring of it all is that it starts like a classic true crime show, but it quickly becomes an interrogation of the true crime genre. One of Leah’s great lines is that this isn’t true crime so much as it is bureaucratic horror in the rural town of Rainier, Oregon.
I love getting a chance to chat with Leah, and this was special to hear from Ryan Haas, too, who up until recently spent more than a dozen years at OPB. She and Leah worked on the epic Bundyville Podcast together and two seasons of Hush. I’m gonna miss Hush because I would run five miles listening to primarily Leah, though Ryan pops in every now and again, narrate this incredible story about what happens when journalism folds up shop in a small town, when the greek choir of Facebook is the primary news source, when power-hungry people leverage a tragedy for personal gain, when law enforcement becomes lax.
In this episode, they talk about:
- The Grid of Doom
- The evolution of their partnership
- How they push each other
- Interrogating the true crime genre
- White board conversations
- Being open to where the reporting goes
- Being open to complication
- Finding the cliff hangers
- And breaking news! The future of Leah and Ryan’s work
Newsletter: Rage Against the Algorithm
Show notes: brendanomeara.com