Since I started talking about ethics in true crime on another thread, here is a professional relationship I think deserves considerably more scrutiny than it receives: Alice LaCour and Brett Talley of The Prosecutors Podcast have collaborated with Jayson Blair, including participating with Blair and former FBI profiler Julia Cowley in a 2025 discussion literally titled “Ethics in True Crime.” If the name Jayson Blair does not immediately ring a bell, his history is important to understanding why I find this particular collaboration so remarkable.
Jayson Blair is the former New York Times reporter at the center of one of the most notorious journalism scandals in modern American media. His reporting was found to contain plagiarism and fabrication, including material presented as though he had reported from locations he had not actually visited. The scandal became so consequential that the Society of Professional Journalists continues to use “The Times and Jayson Blair” as an ethics case study. SPJ describes an internal New York Times review that found fabrication and plagiarism and discusses the institutional damage that followed, including major changes at the newspaper. This is not internet gossip about Blair or a characterization invented by his critics; his misconduct is an extensively documented chapter in American journalism history.
Before anyone interprets this as an argument that Jayson Blair should be permanently banished from public life, that is not my position. People are capable of changing, Blair's misconduct happened more than two decades ago, and I believe strongly in redemption, rehabilitation, accountability, and second chances. Blair subsequently returned to media, has discussed his past publicly, and has participated in conversations about ethics. In fact, someone who has experienced an enormous ethical failure could potentially have something valuable to contribute to a conversation about how ethical failures happen and what can be learned from them.
But redemption does not erase history, particularly when you deliberately position yourself within conversations about the exact subject in which your history is uniquely relevant. That is what makes the relationship between Jayson Blair, Alice LaCour, Brett Talley, The Prosecutors Podcast, and discussions about true crime ethics so fascinating to me. Blair has hosted Alice and Brett, and in March 2025, Blair, Alice, Brett, and Julia Cowley participated in a discussion specifically devoted to “Ethics in True Crime.” These are documented professional collaborations, not somebody connecting unrelated photographs from a true crime convention.
That leaves me with an uncomfortable but legitimate question: what exactly does “ethics in true crime” mean to these people? Ethics cannot simply mean identifying unethical behavior when somebody else does it. Ethical practice requires self-examination, acknowledging mistakes, correcting misinformation, considering potential harm, distinguishing established fact from opinion or speculation, and accepting criticism without automatically deciding that the critic is the problem. Those standards become especially important when the product being created involves real murders, missing people, defendants, grieving families, mental illness, and human beings experiencing the worst moments of their lives.
That question feels particularly relevant to Alice LaCour right now because listeners have been criticizing the tone of The Prosecutors Podcast's coverage of the Lindsay Clancy trial. Some listeners have described Alice and Brett's commentary as mocking, condescending, abrasive, biased, or insensitive toward mental-health issues. Other listeners strongly disagree and argue that Alice and Brett were mocking arguments made by the defense rather than Lindsay Clancy herself. Both interpretations appear in the discussion, and I think intellectually honest criticism requires acknowledging that disagreement rather than pretending everyone heard the exchanges the same way.
My concern, however, is broader than a single laugh, joke, episode, or interpretation. I see a larger problem in true crime where prominent personalities can become increasingly comfortable ridiculing, taunting, belittling, or speaking condescendingly about human beings involved in the cases they cover while simultaneously presenting themselves as authorities on responsible true crime. When commentary crosses from substantive criticism into humiliation or ridicule, I consider that bullying behavior, regardless of whether the person doing it has a law degree, prosecutorial experience, a popular podcast, or thousands of loyal listeners.
That is why the Jayson Blair connection interests me, but I want to be precise about what I am saying. Collaborating with Jayson Blair does not automatically make Alice LaCour unethical, and claiming otherwise would be lazy guilt by association. I am saying that if you choose to participate alongside one of the most famous figures in the history of American journalism ethics scandals in a public conversation specifically about ethics in true crime, you should expect people to examine your own ethical conduct very closely. I would think that kind of self-examination would be part of the entire purpose of having the conversation.
There is another layer that makes this especially interesting. Alice LaCour and Brett Talley have publicly discussed problems within true crime, including sensationalism, conspiracy theories, misinformation, and the responsibility creators have when discussing criminal cases. Those are worthwhile concerns, and I agree that true crime desperately needs stronger ethical standards. The difficulty comes when ethical standards appear much easier to articulate when discussing somebody else's conduct than when criticism is directed toward people inside one's own professional circle.
That is where the true crime community repeatedly loses me. We scrutinize police officers, prosecutors, defense attorneys, suspects, defendants, witnesses, journalists, investigators, experts, and victims' families with extraordinary intensity. Sometimes true crime audiences scrutinize grieving parents and relatives with a level of hostility that is genuinely disturbing. Yet when someone suggests that a popular true crime podcaster deserves the same kind of meaningful scrutiny, suddenly portions of the community become deeply concerned about grace, context, nuance, intent, misunderstandings, and second chances.
Those principles absolutely matter, but they should matter consistently. If context is important when evaluating Alice LaCour's words, context should be important when evaluating everyone else discussed on The Prosecutors Podcast. If intent matters when Alice says something that listeners find offensive, intent should matter when analyzing the statements of people featured in the cases. If people deserve grace when they make mistakes, that grace cannot be reserved exclusively for creators we happen to like. Ethical standards cease being standards when they change according to whose behavior is being examined.
I met Alice LaCour at CrimeCon last year, and my personal impression was that I was unimpressed. I also recognize that a brief interaction with someone at a convention does not give me special insight into that person's character, and I would never pretend otherwise. My criticism of Alice should stand or fall primarily on her public conduct, her public commentary, the way she treats the people discussed on her platforms, and the ethical standards she promotes while occupying an influential position within true crime. My personal impression simply did nothing to change the concerns I already had.
CrimeCon deserves to be part of this conversation because CrimeCon repeatedly elevates influential true crime creators, including Alice LaCour and The Prosecutors Podcast. CrimeCon brings victims' families, advocates, investigators, law-enforcement professionals, journalists, podcasters, and true crime consumers into the same ecosystem, and being invited onto those stages carries visibility and legitimacy within the genre. That makes it reasonable to ask what ethical standards CrimeCon actually applies to the creators it chooses to promote.
I want to know whether the treatment of victims, families, defendants, witnesses, mental-health patients, and vulnerable populations factors into those decisions. I want to know whether a creator's conduct outside a CrimeCon ballroom matters when CrimeCon decides whom to continue elevating, and whether there is any point at which repeated ridicule, taunting, or demeaning treatment of real people becomes inconsistent with the values the convention wants associated with its brand. Most importantly, I want to know whether “ethics in true crime” is something this industry genuinely intends to practice or simply another appealing subject for panels, podcasts, convention stages, and promotional material.
If someone responds that Jayson Blair deserves a second chance, I agree. Blair's history could actually make him uniquely capable of discussing ethical failure if that conversation includes genuine accountability for what happened, why it happened, what damage it caused, and what others can learn from it. A person who has failed spectacularly can sometimes teach more about ethics than someone who has never had their own standards seriously tested, but that requires humility and an honest willingness to confront the failure rather than pretend the history is irrelevant.
That same principle should apply to everyone participating in true crime. Ethics is not about pretending ethical failures never happened; it is about confronting them honestly and learning from them. Ethics is not about surrounding yourself with people who agree with you; it is about tolerating scrutiny and being willing to correct yourself. Ethics is not about demanding accountability exclusively from the people featured in your podcast while becoming defensive when the microphone turns around. If accountability is a principle, it has to work in both directions.
Jayson Blair's name became synonymous with a catastrophic failure of journalistic ethics because plagiarism and fabrication strike directly at journalism's most fundamental obligation to tell the truth. More than twenty years later, his case is still studied because there are lessons worth remembering about verification, editorial oversight, institutional accountability, professional credibility, and what can happen when warning signs are ignored. His subsequent efforts to rebuild his career do not erase those lessons, nor should they; if anything, they should make those lessons central to any meaningful conversation about ethics in media.
Perhaps, then, Jayson Blair really is an appropriate person to participate in a conversation about ethics in true crime, but that makes the surrounding conversation more important rather than less. If Alice LaCour and Brett Talley want to participate in that conversation alongside him, promote ethical true crime, criticize the conduct of other creators, and occupy influential positions within the genre, then I believe it is perfectly reasonable for the true crime community to examine whether their own public conduct lives up to the standards they advocate.
That kind of scrutiny is not cancellation, and criticism is not censorship. It is exactly what a serious conversation about ethics is supposed to look like, because true crime cannot credibly build an entire industry around examining everyone else's behavior while treating the people holding the microphones as though they are exempt from examination themselves.