Podcasts 2022: Serial returns with investigation into the UK Trojan Horse scandal
A single letter in 2013 polarised the United Kingdom, sparked a political and media firestorm and saw every Muslim student in Birmingham in England under scrutiny.
A single letter in 2013 polarised the United Kingdom, sparked a political and media firestorm and saw every Muslim student in Birmingham in England come under intense scrutiny.
Now believed to be a hoax, the letter purported to be a photocopy of correspondence between Islamist conspirators outlining how to infiltrate the public school system in a plot called “Operation Trojan Horse”.
It alleged Muslim educators were using schools as secret training grounds for radical jihadis.
The letter and its fallout is the subject of a new podcast from Serial Productions and the New York Times.
The Trojan Horse Affair is hosted by Brian Reed and Hamza Syed, a journalism student obsessed by the answer to the one question at the heart of the controversy that no one has answered. Who wrote the Trojan Horse letter? The answer may have more to do with power hungry bureaucrats than radical jihadis.
The podcast delves into the latent racism that breathed life into the scandal and the pre-existing mistrust of Islam in schools before the letter landed on the desk of a Birmingham city councillor.
There’s also the collision between the old school detached journalism of Reed and the modern activist approach of Syed, who left a career in medicine determined to change minds after he felt the sting of prejudice.
Serial has failed to replicate the success of its first season, which with hundreds of millions of listeners worldwide, is one of the most successful podcasts ever made.
Host Sarah Koenig investigated with equal rigour bias in the legal system and the high school drama leading up to the 1999 death of Hae Min Lee and the jailing of her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed.
Follow-up seasons have lacked the same hook.
Whether the Trojan Horse Affair will replicate the success of Serial remains to be seen but there’s certainly enough mystery and intimacy to keep listeners engaged.
Review recommends The Trojan Horse Affair for people hungry for the truth but able to digest complicated answers.
Listen to The Trojan Horse Affair on your favourite podcast app
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