One of the top podcasts is This American Life by Ira Glass. I happen to run across an article that was looking back at the 500 episodes that TAL (This American Life) has produced.
This is where I found out about the “Very Tough Love” episode. In it he tells the story of a young girl named Lindsey Dills. I have never listened to this podcast (although I've heard about it over, and over, and over). Then I listened to this episode. WOW. There is a TON of effort put into each episode. In this episode Ira reports on a court in Georgia where the Superior Court Judge Amanda Williams was sentencing people to extremely harsh verdicts. In this episode a daughter wrote 2 forged checks from her father's checking account and ended up with 10 years. When Ira heard about this story he thought “Someone should do something about this.” Then it dawned on him.
Oh, I'm the media….
But Williams was such a powerful figure within the community that Glass found it nearly impossible to nail down the facts about her. “It took me months before I was able even to ascertain that what I was being told was true,” says Glass. “And during that period, really, I think everyone in my life was very skeptical that there would ever be a story. I would fly down to Georgia for the fourth or fifth time, and my whole staff would just roll their eyes. Like, ‘What are you doing?’”
The story first ran on March 25, 2011, and within the year, Judge Williams left the bench for good. “At the same time that I was [in Georgia], something called the Judicial Qualifications Commission was looking into her,” says Glass. “The presence and visibility of the radio show about her — I know this is true because I’ve talked to people now who were part of that process — raised the profile of that case and kind of expedited it. They brought charges against her, and she stepped down from office.”
Read the full story, or listen to the podcast episode.
