‘I said no, never, no way…it will never work’ the trial of a respected policeman accused of corruption was the focus of Norwegians from everywhere after the success of a podcast, why?
When Runar Henriksen Jorstad with Irina Tjelle was asked to make a podcast on a huge ongoing trial in Norway at first he flatly refused. But the subject fired his imagination. So a mini investigation started within NRK. No one wanted to talk to the team, Erik Jensen, the main focus of the trial didn’t want to given an interview.
A few weeks before the trial the team had nothing on tape, so they became traditional police and went out to get interviews. They went to a biker club house on a Saturday night, after an awkward start they spent five hours in the club house, this was a turning point of the podcast as it gave them the journalist idea for this podcast. This was the break through, they would interview people to get their views on this trial. It was important to talk to the people around the case. Every time they went to interview a source so everything was taped, it was very strange to talk about all these personal issues.
To get the podcast known they used the power of their current platforms. NRK has the power to get the information out there. Strangers started to call the journalists and then they started to get hundreds of emails and listeners started to follow the day-to-day of the trial on the main NRK platforms.
Erik Jensen started listening to the podcast during the court case whilst the prosecution asked for the maximum sentence of 21 years. His only interview after the court case was with the podcast.
