Interview With Journalist and Filmmaker Lisa Riordan Seville
Dave:
Our guest this episode is Lisa Riordan Seville. She describes herself as an independent reporter and producer focused on stories that explore how money power and policy shape the lives of everyday people across the United States. I would describe her as one of the most effective voices I see in journalism, in humanizing the effects of mass incarceration. Along with Bliss Broyard, she captured the stories of the 15 people who died at Rikers Island last year in a New York magazine cover story, that graced the final cover of 2021. And her new film ‘Woman on The Outside’ has just been accepted at the South by Southwest Film Festival that will take place in Austin later this year.
Linda:
I just want you to know, I’m going to try to keep it together. But I’ve been really pulling over your stories and the work that you’ve done and it’s just so beautiful, what you do and how you write. And I’m really wanting you to know how I appreciate the way that you handled the families. It’s a sacred honor when we give you guys the opportunity to really open up and that’s not easy to do. And so when it comes back to you, and it feels like what you would have said yourself, then I know it’s God’s sent, and you are an angel, and you are being used to do some really good work. And thank you so much for sharing this with us today. And I just personally really appreciate it.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
Well, thank you for saying that. I know how much it takes for people to share some of these stories that I do. Well, I should say, I can imagine I don’t know personally. And I think that lack of knowledge is what I try and respect and try and be respectful of people. The process of journalism is a little rough. You do have to ask hard questions. And it’s important to give people the opportunity to answer a hard question. So the hard questions might come at them at some point, and better that folks know. But, you’re also asking people to dig into some of the hardest experiences of their lives. And I recognize what I’m asking, I guess I should say, and I recognize what people are giving.
Dave:
For people who are not familiar with your work, a excellent precis of that work, and an incredibly moving piece of work that was published at the beginning of the year in New York Magazine, is this account of the 15 deaths in Rikers last year. And there are a lot of lines that I’d like to spend talking to you about that we can draw through these lives, but wanted to start with the simplicity of the stories that you wrote. And simplicity is not meant to be a pejorative term. But my instinct when confronting deaths and jails was to find out what happened, what went wrong, and who was accountable and missed almost all of the humanity. And the simplicity and the humanizing language that you used to describe these 15 lives, I found to be extraordinary. And for those who have not picked up the article, support good journalism, subscribe to New York Magazine, pay for good work, and read this And tell us how it came together.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
So to give credit where credit is due, this was actually an assignment from New York Magazine, they reached out to my co writer Bliss Broyard who has written for them before. And we actually, sort of were connected in another way. And she reached out to me because it was a big job, unfortunately. They wanted to do obituaries or profiles of everyone who had died. And there were 13, I believe, when we got the assignment and 15 when it ended. So, that’s a lot of lives to figure out. It’s a lot of reporting. We did try and understand what happened, both how they arrived at Rikers and how each of these men passed away. But we also wanted to understand who they were before they arrived. The cool of them, what experiences had brought them there. And that was a real balance.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
There’s always an interesting part of journalism when you’re dealing with criminal justice because the facts of how folks died or how they arrived in custody are relevant, but I never want them to be the whole story because they’re not. And so navigating that was part of it. But we really depended on speaking to the people who knew them, understanding who this individual was, whether a son, a father, a partner, the whole of them. And so that list then, I split them up, we sort of each took some names and we started making calls. There were a number of people who had… The local press had covered this over time. And so it’s really important to give credit where credit’s due there, there is so little local journalism now. And without that, our job would have been really much harder.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And so New York, we still have newspapers, in a lot of places we don’t. And so these deaths go unreported entirely. And someone might not even be counting who died in a jail in some part of New Jersey, or some part of Louisiana or some part of Georgia. But we started reaching out to the families and they were interested in talking, that’s not always the case, as you two may know. But people were really motivated, they felt like… I heard over and over again, that this had happened to their loved one and they didn’t want it to happen again. And so some people I talked to on the phone, it’s still COVID. Some people I talked to on Zoom, some people, it was that little low where I could sit in their living room and we could spend the time. And that to me, if it’s possible, is always really important because you are excavating really hard moments. And to be able to be a person and sit with another person and talk about their loved one and their grief is important.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
So Bliss and I spent a few months doing that. And then also trying to talk to sources in government, trying to speak to folks who had worked or did work at Rikers, and really understand what are the forces behind these deaths? Because for the most part most people did not die of COVID, and didn’t die explicitly of violence in the jail. They died largely of lack of oversight, neglect, lack of medical care, and conditions that were really harrowing, that led to what we think is people taking their life.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
So suicides in a jail are a sign of dysfunction. They’re not just a sign of one individual. I mean, obviously, mental health plays a role. But when you’re seeing that pattern, it means that something is going wrong inside the jail. We needed to paint that without that overtaking the lives of the individuals, and that was a real part of it. Because I feel like I got to know a little bit of each of these men. And sometimes it was their loved one talking about one of the hardest moments of their lives, and many times it was their loved one talking about why they loved this person, even if they were the victim of the alleged. Yeah, so I published in January, and it was really interesting to see how people respond to it.
Linda:
Yeah, I know I’m looking over and one of the things that stood out with me right in the beginning, was the fact that you made the point of citing that Rikers is a series of jails, not a prison. And we struggle with that here. That perception that, oh, if you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime. But we live in a country that prides itself on the legal system of innocent until proven guilty. And so I think, what you were able to bring out in highlighting that these are the humaneness of the people that are here, but also these are our citizens that are just being detained until they get their opportunity to defend themselves. And how do we as a society justify the treatment of those people who haven’t been or even if they have been, but they are entrusted to our custody? And that’s a sacred right. So in speaking with those that work in the facilities, what were some of your biggest takeaways from what they were saying about how, whether it’s staffing or administrative policies or whatever did you get that idea that contributed to a lot of this other deaths that were there?
Lisa Riordan Seville:
We didn’t get too deep into this in the piece, but I think it’s really important. Rikers Island or the New York City Department of Correction has, as the federal monitor describes, one of the richest staff to detainee ratios in the country. Which means there are actually more staff members that right now than there are. It’s a really strong union, they have advocated very well for their staff. But there was what has largely been described as a staffing crisis. And that’s in part because there is unlimited sick leave, the union is really strong, and the New York Times has covered this really well, folks just wouldn’t show up to work or they would… It’s how they allocated stuff, it was really the problem. There were a lot of people on the special kind of strike team, but not a lot of people on the floor.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
So you would have one officer in a housing unit, which is just not enough to respond to fights, to de escalate, to respond, if someone is having a medical emergency. You need one person to stay in the housing unit, another person to escort someone if they have a medical emergency. So for months during this crisis at Rikers… here was a settlement some years ago, after a lawsuit which was very well covered. So a federal monitor has been overseeing the jail for at least six years now. And usually they do two reports a year and they started writing these letters to the court saying this is the crisis. But the monitor really reiterated there are enough staff, it’s just where they’re going that’s the problem.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And the monitor had some pretty alarming things to say about the potential for cultural change within the institution, the problems with leadership. And I think leadership at any institution like this really sets the tone. And on the other hand, you can change the person at the top, but it doesn’t automatically change the rest of the institution, as we’ve seen. So that is the overarching, but I also always want to emphasize, two correctional officers can have very different attitudes in the same space. One can be much more attentive. A lot of correctional officers at Rikers come from the same community, they see people they know come through, and that’s true in most institutions, that are at least proximate to where people grew up.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And other people get really jaded. It’s hard. Jails are not a place that foster humanity. It is a crisis place, people are scared. It’s tense. And so I think we need to think about that when we think about these places. And I had a couple conversations off the record with a number of people and one person said something. And she said in her time working within the system… It wasn’t a correctional officer just for context. But she really said, “I came to realize how problematic jails are because the very culture sort of requires you to get de sensitized.” And how do you go to work every day and function while also keeping the empathy that you need to not ignore someone when they attempt on their life, for instance? And just think that they’re trying to get attention. So those are the very deep structural things that we saw and not all of that explicitly made it into the story, but it really kept me thinking about the nature of institutions like this.
Dave:
Yeah. The similarities were stark. They were all men, they were all black and brown. I think there are a few exceptions here, but they were largely non violent. Generally, I think people who support prison reform would say most of them did not belong in pretrial detention, they belonged in drug treatment, or they belonged in mental health intervention, or they belonged in some kind of diversion. If you’re not familiar with this work, and you read this article, it is also an outline of all the ways the system has failed us across the country in every jail from Rikers to San Ysidro.
Dave:
What struck me was all of the different ways you can end up in Rikers, where the system has also failed us whether it’s driving while black, or petty parole violations that don’t even involve criminal behavior. And then, of course, when you get there all the ways that Rikers can fail you, whether it’s neglect, or whether it’s, “We don’t want to call our captain after hours, or I don’t believe you’re sick.” To then all the ways that it failed to preserve life when something really bad happened. Were there any in there that were unexpected, that came to light only when you put the 15 stories together? Similarities or differences.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
This is the one that I struggled, or the two that I struggled with the most, and we didn’t go that deep, but I want to bring it up. We got back from the medical examiner that two people died of methadone overdoses. Rikers has a really progressive opioid substance abuse treatment program where they provide methadone and suboxone in the jails. All the research shows this saves lives. Because one of the most dangerous things is when people get out of jail, and if they use again, that’s like when you’re really prone to overdose. And so they’ve trained visitors in using naloxone and different opioid reversals. And it really is an important program. I think it speaks to the dysfunction of the jail that people were either not getting the right dosage, because methadone can be dangerous. It’s like any other drug. Or it was getting diverted somehow and people were using it.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And I think it speaks to the ways in which these institutions are doing really important work that’s beyond the scope of what a jail traditionally should do, which is providing access to really necessary drug treatment. And as we’ve seen, during the pandemic, so many people have died. As I was reporting it I was trying to figure out and I talked to a lot of people. This is a sensitive thing and we don’t know the answers. We don’t know how they got it. And it’s also actually quite hard to tell that someone OD’ed on methadone. So some people questioned the conclusion.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
So I had all these questions. But to me it spoke to the need to… It’s really hard to provide really sensitive kinds of care in a jail setting when the jail is breaking down. And people are in lockdown. And it really struck me that we are asking our jails to do a lot that they’re not designed to do. And that in itself can put people in danger. But that was one of the hardest things because I also couldn’t answer all the questions that are raised for me. Yeah, so otherwise, unfortunately, these are iterations on things that I’ve seen a lot of in my time reporting on deaths in custody.
Linda:
Well, what I will say is that, your handling of the stories, again, was so masterful in how you brought the humaneness of each individual. And from the perspective of their loved ones and their partners, the people that knew them every day. And I see that that’s indicative of your body of work. I have the honor of going on your personal web page and seeing some of the things that you’ve done for NBC and for VICE and different things of that nature. And I can see that there’s that common thread of really exposing the humanity of the subject matter. And what I will say is that is so important in this day and time. When we’re working in criminal justice reform, a lot of people want to focus on the statistics, and depopulation.
Linda:
And like Dave was saying, a lot of individuals who are caught up in this system, have no business being there in the first place. But it is so important for people like yourself who have a platform and have this voice, to really bring out the humanness. And I’d like to just mention, for instance, the story that you did in Louisiana, actually Jefferson Parish, the young boy, who had gotten shot by the sheriff’s deputies, and the way that you brought out his side of the story and what his mother was going through. The fact that she had to go to work and just wasn’t getting any answers and different things of that nature. So I would love for you to juxtapose this with what you did with the Rikers, because this is something that I feel that it’s always a thread with you, that you really seek to bring out the humanity of really the whole story, the whole person, like you said before.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
Well, I think over time, I’ve thought a lot about the rippling effects of the system. When someone touches the… Whether you call it the criminal justice system or the criminal legal system or a prison or a jail or a court, it’s usually not one person. And we are often focused on that person and not focused on that stretched out effect. And in both records and that story in Louisiana, women are often my sources. They are often the moms and the girlfriends and sisters and the daughters who are negotiating the system, and needing answers and not getting them. Or paying bills to a system that doesn’t feel accountable to them. And I think I’ve focused over the years a lot about that experience, because it’s one that has often been overlooked. And yet, in my decade of reporting, I saw that accumulating, which has led to this other project that I will dive into.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
I also think I’ve learned a lot because the people that I talk to often have very nuanced views. And in the sense of the women or even the people, the system can see things from many sides, it’s often not totally black and white. And I try to bring that out, because I don’t think someone who’s involved in the system, it’s not always black and white, as well as, someone can have committed a crime and also be an important person in someone’s life. And someone can be a victim of a crime and also have thoughts about the system.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And so I tried to bring up that nuance, because I think everyone agrees that the system doesn’t work. There are a lot of people who don’t feel safe, and there’s a lot of people who feel unduly punished. But I think in order to make change, we have to live in that nuance and that makes things much more complicated. So as a journalist, I feel I’m not an activist, I am a storyteller and stories allow room for some of those gray areas that action should be influenced by, but action is a different prospect. And so I see myself in that space where I can muddy the waters at times, and hopefully that’s useful.
Linda:
Very useful.
Dave:
I did always enjoy the pot stirring part of it. I think it was the immersion in the pot that made me very uncomfortable and burned me out eventually. Let’s get into the story of the film in a second. But I think one thing that really encapsulates this work well is the Instagram feed and so I don’t want to give short shrift. The Everyday Incarceration on Instagram if you haven’t seen it.
Linda:
Powerful.
Dave:
Incredibly powerful, yet again, simple visual representations of those ripples and the life and the work that needs to continue while someone is behind bars and also the impacts because of that person’s absence. How did it start? What does it do? What has the response been? Give us the whole Everyday Incarceration story.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
Yeah. So in late 2013, early 2014, I had been reporting on criminal justice for a few years, I am an investigative reporter, mostly. And so try to combine that kind of hard hitting pot stirring with human stories. And I was talking to a friend of mine, Kat, who’s a photo editor and visual producer. And this was a very different moment in journalism, in terms of coverage of criminal justice issues. And she was saying, “I am visual first and most of my news, I look at the photo. And because there’s so little photography about incarceration or criminal justice issues, I feel like I don’t know those stories,” is what Zara said. And because it’s very hard to photograph in facilities. In 2014, it wasn’t as widely covered, we didn’t have a lot of the news outlets we have today that are focused on criminal justice issues.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And so she said, “Why don’t we…” Instagram was still kind of newer. I didn’t have an Instagram account at the time. And she said, “Why don’t we start an Instagram feed? I will reach out to all of my photographers who have done this work over the years. And you can Jimmy the captions, and we can start to create an archive of what this actually looked like somewhere to go and see it.” And we made the window of the era of mass incarceration, so sort of 1980 forward. And she started reaching out to people who dug into their files, and we have stuff. I think the earliest is the late 1970s, in Georgia, these amazing black and white images, in parts of facilities, you just would never get access to now, up until today.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And we wanted images behind bars. But we also wanted to get the idea of every day, which is part of… It started as everyday Africa. And the idea was to push back against the images of Africa. There were also one note, and there’s like an entire continent and a very robust life. And that feed is really big. And so we became part of the everyday family. But we wanted to take their same ethos of what is the quotidian life, day to day experience if you touch this system. And so yeah, we curated it in sets and tried to tell little stories featuring different photographers. And it really started to take on a life of its own. So it’s been a labor of love. Zara still reaches out. We have a great intern who helps us out now, Carla Canning, who is into these issues, but we still kind of do it in between things.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
But as we went forward, I was talking to Zara who has always had a lot of interest in stories by and about women. And I said, “One story that’s missing is of all my sources and what it’s like to wait in line to go into a facility. And what it’s like to wait for the call that you haven’t gotten. What it’s like to scrap up some money for commissary. And what it’s like to not get answers, or be frustrated at times. And so, with some help from the Magnum Foundation, which is a photo Foundation, we did a workshop and then got some support from them to start interviewing women. And we made a survey and we started kind of talking to women, about what is your story? What’s the story you would want to tell? And what would it look like to put this is the primary story about incarceration in one context?
Lisa Riordan Seville:
Like, yes, the person inside but what if we flipped it and just talk to you first, and what would that story look like? And that’s how we met is Kristal Bush, who has become a partner and a collaborator and a friend. She was running a band service in Philadelphia called Bridging the Gap. They would drive folks from Philadelphia to the prisons across the state. As in Louisiana and California, the prisons are often very far from where people’s families are.
Linda:
Exactly.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And so the very issue of transportation becomes a barrier to keeping families together. Kristal had virtually every man in her life incarcerated. Her dad went in when she was three. Her brother has spent, by the time we met her, more than a decade in jail. Another brother in and out. Cousins serving really long sentences. And that’s not unusual for a lot of people in Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in particular. They’ve had pretty harsh, actually very much like Louisiana, second degree is automatic life sentence. You had tons of lifers in Pennsylvania and other people serving a lot of time. And we started working with Kristal, she’s this incredibly open person just a couple years younger than we are, and just a really vibrant, fun, energetic… She had a full time job as a social worker, and then did this as… It was a business but not one to make you rich.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And she did that on the weekends. Her mom drove as well. And at some point, she was just like, “You got to come ride the van. You could ask me all these questions, but you should really just ride the van.” And so in the summer of 2016, we did. And we worked with her and a number of her riders to create a photo exhibition, with a photographer, Zora Murff, who’s really brilliant. And Kristal brought a van full of writers to Photoville to come see it. And the women just stood there, and they read the interviews of themselves, and they watched this video. And we were kind of joking with them, because we knew them pretty well at that point. Like, “We do this every weekend, what are you looking at?” And they said, “Well, we’ve never really seen it like this. Yeah, we’ve seen it. But to really witness my experience is different.”
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And actually, during that process, the exhibit was up for a week, and women would come and whisper to us, like, “Oh, yeah, I have someone inside,” or “This is my experience.” And we just decided to keep going, we never intended to make a documentary. But we went back to Philadelphia and talk to Kristal some more. And the story started to shift because both her brother and her father came home, about a year after we met her. And that was so joyful, and also really complicated. They had not been a family together. She has been raising her brother’s son, her nephew, since she was in her early 20s. And all of a sudden, she was a daughter, and a caretaker to her father, a sister and a co parent to her brother. The criminal justice system was looming in the background.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And so over the four years that the film covers, it captures the complexity of trying to become a family after being torn apart for so long. And really, Kristal is a really opinionated, powerful voice, and she voices the love and the frustration, and all of that in that period. And, like I said, it operates in that complex space that we’re interested in. But it is also really full throated one woman’s experience that’s not everyone’s experience. And we always emphasize that. But, what it is to be this young, ambitious woman, and also to try and be connected to family is to always be tethered to the system. And what does that take from people? So the film is called a woman on the outside, and it’s going to debut at South by Southwest Film Festival in March.
Dave:
Wow. South by Southwest.
Linda:
So exciting.
Dave:
Unbelievable. And thank you for saving that news for the Fair Fight Initiative Podcast and telling the world.
Linda:
Well, how appropriate. I will tell you that it is so amazing. This film is… As we walk through this system, this mass incarceration, and we’re dissecting all of these parts. And it is very refreshing to see this perspective, because a lot of times, like Dave said, we always want to focus on the mechanics of why and who and what, but not the overarching consequences of what’s going on behind the scenes, what the families are going through. This is another part, and I think you may have mentioned this in the documentary promo, this is another side of an American family. We think of American family as one thing, but because mass incarceration is such an integral part of the American experience, especially for African Americans, for black and brown people, that this is the other side of that.
Linda:
You mentioned the women coming up and whispering, “Oh, I have someone in.” It almost says, “Okay, you’re not by yourself.” When I looked at the Instagram, the Everyday Incarceration, I’m just thinking to myself, how many people were familiar to me, and how people need to see this, and to be able to see themselves, to be able to grow their perspective. And God kept giving me this analogy of the Good Samaritan. So when we think about that story, for those who don’t know it, it’s about a man who was robbed, and he was beaten and left on the side of the road. And there were a series of people that come by and see him, but they don’t want to get involved. But then there’s this person that comes by, the Good Samaritan, that sees him. And not only gets him out of that hole, but takes him to a place and provides for him as he is recovering.
Linda:
And what I felt when I was looking at the work and I was looking at the documentary is that you are exposing that person. You are exposing that person that is laying there as a whole individual person. And it is up to the individual to decide if they’re going to walk away. And it’s so important for that exposure to be done because you can use, why they got arrested, you can use where they are now incarcerated, and you can use that to look away. But once you begin to see the person, begin to see their families, the benefit of who they are, their life means something, then it’s a little bit harder for you to look away. And then now it becomes a personal question, “Why am I not doing more to change this scourge?” I can’t wait to see it. I’m absolutely excited to watch it.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
So there aren’t a lot of good studies about women, about how many, but there are a few estimates. And as many as one in four American women may have had either a close loved one or a friend or acquaintance incarcerated. And we talk about that number because there’s 1.2… Or there’s about two million people incarcerated now, give or take, on any given day. But when you look at that in the aggregate of many more. And if we’re talking about an experience that has hatched a quarter of American women in some way, it is a majority experience. It’s not a fringe experience. And I do think our goal is in many ways to get that conversation. I can’t tell you how many people when we talk to them, they’re like, “Oh, I do. I have had people inside.” And I feel like if that were something that were talked about more and not stigmatize, it would shift the conversation [crosstalk 00:38:17]
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And if you would permit me to build on your Good Samaritan for a moment, I think that we ask the women to be the Good Samaritans that dig someone out of the hole. And there is a lot of, that should be honored. I also think we should question whether we as society to wait around for someone with a good heart to come. And what that asks of people. And I think Kristal’s experience, and I’m sure your experience, maybe you share it offline with people of what they’d ask of you to be the person who’s coming by and not looking by.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And I think if we actually recognize it’s a form of caregiving in the same way we asked people to mother without recognition, to do health care without recognition, to care for elderly people and children without recognition or compensation or support. And I think the the expectation that good hearted people will pick up the burden of the people that we allow to be harmed or leave worse off than we got them when they arrived, is something that we need to consider, because that Good Samaritan story, it takes a lot out of you to be a Good Samaritan. You can get something but it often can leave you depleted. I think we need to ask how can we support the people who are lying on the road.
Linda:
That’s an amazing point.
Dave:
I think there’s a wrongness about the expectation of who is expected to do it that you point out too, that we need to focus on because a person who looks like me is excused from being a Good Samaritan if he’s too busy with his work, or to be a father, if it’s a gender thing. If it’s a race thing, there are different excuses that allow for a person who looks like me not to be a Samaritan. However, it’s entirely unfair for our women and for our people of color to just be entirely expected to always be the Samaritan, or always expect to offer the grace when something bad happens to them. When something bad happens to a person that looks like me, I’m allowed to be outraged.
Dave:
And I wanted to ask you a little bit more about that in the context of the means by which you’re telling these stories, because I was incredibly moved to hear you account for the women entering a gallery to see their story. And the primary power of this, of course, is what Linda has already touched on. And I don’t want this to sound like some oneup or trumping net. The primary experience of this that everyone should and can see, that will start to lower the walls of those jails and allow us more sight into the impacts that this system is having on all of us.
Dave:
But the means by which you are presenting those stories, whether it’s in a photo gallery, or now at South by Southwest, the impact that it’s had on them to have their stories accepted in channels that are typically only reserved for stories that don’t look like theirs, or that don’t involve outcomes like theirs, or that are, like Linda said, typically whispered, because it’s shameful. The impact that it’s had on the people since the gallery or what you expect on the red carpet at South by Southwest, the impact for it to have for these stories to come into, I hate to call it popular consciousness because I take issue with what makes it popular. But the mainstream.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
Well, I worry about that. And Linda, maybe you could speak to this, because you’ve been… Attention can go in many directions. And we’re very close to this family that the film captures some really hard moments that we did not see coming. And so we went down a couple weekends ago and showed it to everyone in the family and talked about it. And we said, “How can we support you? It’s going to be weird to have people in your life and ask you questions about the… How are you going to figure out how to talk about it? What’s this going to mean in your family? You’re going to be a little bit more of a public figure, how do you feel about that?” I think we’re trying to figure out how to prepare for some of that, because it’s strange. Even doing this is strange for me.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
It’s one thing to have my name on a website, it’s another thing to have my face and speaking and thinking in public. So I think we’re going to figure that out. But I hope that it puts it in the canon in the sense of this being… I think of this as a story about American family, and a story about families and a story about the complexities of families and what people go through behind closed doors. Or what goes on at home with a woman who might be teaching your child or caring for your loved one, or running a board room, or driving a bus. It could be any of those people. But I think that it’s an incredible honor to have people be willing to answer your questions and share their stories. And this family has been so open and opened their doors and their lives in a way that is very rare, I think. And we tried to honor that as best we could and understand what the limits of that should be.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And I think that can be very complicated. I hope that people receive this as that story and think about it and either see themselves in it, even if their experience is very different, maybe in their relationship with their brother or their mother or their child or their dad. And I also feel somewhat protective, because what it is, and Linda you know this, to lay out these really sensitive parts of your life, and there’s going to be some people who don’t care. And that’s part of the deal. There’s going to be some people who judge and that’s part of the deal. And so I think we’re going to figure out what that means. And figure it out together. But with any story, you put it out into the world and it’s not yours anymore.
Linda:
Yeah. My heart is leaping here, when you said that you took the time to go back and to be with the family and to show them these things and that can get their reactions, and not exploit that you may have had a good take of one of those housewifey type of moments. You know what I mean? The drama of the situation. And I will tell you from experience that, that is paramount for those of us who will open up our wounds to you, that you take into consideration what we may be going through, because as much as you feel this is new to you having to do your interviews, and this is a nightmare that we never wanted to live. We don’t want this recognition for this reason.
Linda:
And to have someone who is so caring, not only with our stories, but with how that story is going to be affecting us in everyday time, you are right there on. And bravo to you and your crew. And it shows that the story itself and the people really mean something to you, and not just putting it out there for the sake of, “Oh, my goodness, we’ve got this good angle, let’s run with it,” because they’re going to need that support. And I’m telling you from personal experience, they’re going to need to know how to navigate the media. They’re going to need to know what to say and when to say, and they’re going to…
Linda:
I felt uncomfortable. You feel like you don’t want to say the wrong thing. But then you want to be yourself, but you can’t be yourself. And so you just saying that shows that there… And this young lady is so amazing in all that she is already doing. And sometimes we can come across extremely confident and extremely adept in certain situations. But on the inside we’re very insecure, because we do hold the weight of our families on our shoulders. And so it’s a blessing to know that you are really concerned about that. And stay in that vein. However much help and encouragement you can give, do that. And I think that you’re doing that, and that’s going to show. Yeah.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And I’ll just say, it’s myself, my co directors, our Katz, our incredible producer Kiara C. Jones, who is also a writer on the project and the North Star in many ways, and our editor, Susanna Herbert. And as white directors, we’ve thought a lot, we’ve talked a lot with the family, there’s a lot of complex history and politics there, that it was really important for us to navigate. And Kiara’s, a black woman. And we had really a lot of conversations about these questions and access. And what we show and how that’s framed within the history of media, and the pain of black women, and, not wanting it to be just about that, because someone is a whole person.
Lisa Riordan Seville:
And Susanna is an incredibly sensitive editor, and we have that group of women. We’re like, “Okay, well, how do we tell a story that resonates with women? And how do we care for each other and for those women as we move forward, and for the unexpected?” So to answer your question, I hope people see pieces of their own experience or experience of the women that they know in this, and not simply as sort of an othered experience. Because I think it’s really a shared one, whether it’s criminal justice specifically, or the experience of women navigating the world. And this is one iteration of that.
Linda:
It’s empowering. What you have done is empowering. But Dave, what you guys do when you’re telling stories, and it’s done in such a brilliant and amazing way. I’m speaking about journalists and people who tell the storytellers, is that you give us an opportunity to feel that our voices matter. And you have empowered that family I will tell you that. And so just the love and the ease with which you’re telling me that you’re interacting, lets me know that you are an ally and you have empowered. This is empowering because that’s what you feel. When you see your story… I guarantee you when those ladies walked in there and they saw videos of them speaking and somebody is listening to me, and that validates you and that gives you power. It makes you feel more powerful. Again, thank you so much, Lisa, for your perspective. Thank you so much for the way that you care about the stories, about the subject, about the people, that you allow to be seen through your platform.
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