The Preventionist - Podcast Rankings and reviews

This podcast highlights the real-world consequences of what happens when the pendulum swings too far in either direction. In this case, it examines how medical and legal systems can overreact, removing children from homes where abuse did not occur. It serves as a powerful reminder of the difficult balance we must strike between protecting children from genuine harm and preserving families that are loving, safe, or in need of support rather than separation.
As someone who went through the system and experienced abuse, I was failed in the opposite way. Despite multiple indicators and clear evidence that I should have been removed from my home, no action was taken. These two realities can exist at the same time. Not all parents are abusive—but there are also instances where professionals, acting out of fear, bias, or unchecked authority, cause harm by misusing their power. Conversely, there are providers who fail children by turning a blind eye to serious, documented abuse when intervention is necessary.
The reporter does an effective job presenting a clear, evidence-based investigation of a physician whose actions, across multiple cases, led to fractured families and deeply traumatized children. The reporting avoids sensationalism and instead lays out the facts, allowing the impact of those decisions to speak for itself.
What this ultimately shows is that the system is not balanced—and balance is essential. We need a comprehensive overhaul of the child welfare system that both protects children from real danger and supports families appropriately, using discernment, accountability, and compassion rather than extremes. Children deserve safety, and families deserve fairness. Those goals should never be in conflict.

Child welfare is a difficult, heart wrenching, nuanced subject. This podcast was well done. Thorough research, thoughtful writing, beautiful production. I highly recommend.

This is an incredibly eye opening and well thought out podcast. I am not surprised the reviews are so binary. I would be willing to bet most of the negative reviews are from individuals without children who can’t possibly understand the trauma of being falsely accused of child abuse and the threat of having your child taken away unjustifiably. Hats off to NYT and Serial for having the courage to bring this systemic issue to light.

The one-star reviews are exactly what the show is working against: the self-righteous, over-simplified approach to policy and charges that affect real lives. I think we need reporting like this that delves into the complexities and messiness of seemingly cut-and-dry stories.

I cannot believe the New York Times of all institutions actually put its name behind such a poorly reported podcast.

Much like Take Care of Maya, I first listened to this and got upset. HOWEVER, also like TCoM, they leave out so much easily found public and primary data that tell a VERY different story. They did not correctly portray what exactly a child abuse specialist does within the court system. In addition, the podcaster leaves out important family history in several of the portrayed cases that would leave the reader with, at a minimum, more doubt as to whether the parents are telling the truth.

Real journalists have an ethical duty to fact-check and to treat individual testimony with skepticism. ESPECIALLY IN THIS DAY AND AGE. Not doing so is either sloppy, or worse, contorting facts to fit a story. This is yellow journalism. I’m left with the impression that this was a story designed to get clicks and stoke emotional moral panic.

This could have been a podcast exploring real faults in the child welfare system. What we have instead is propaganda that plays directly into conspiracy thinking with contorted data to back it up. Worse, you’ve given child abusers a platform.

To Serial: Shame on you. I hope you understand that when you push forward sensationalist slop like this, while you may benefit in revenue, it has a bigger cost. You make people hesitate to report suspected abuse for fear they even if it’s good faith and they’re protected, they’ll be smeared. You make parents less likely to trust doctors in an era where we’re already dealing with anti-vax and anti-science approaches that harm and even kill children. And worst of all, you teach viewers to digest information based on what evokes a strong emotional response, not by what the facts say. I would strongly encourage you to consider a follow up episode where you explore all of these criticisms in the comments. At least then you’d actually have to fact-check.

It is very disappointing for something sponsored by the New York Times to have such a very obviously one-sided story told. Why is there no focus on anything that happened to the children? Did the parents in question not release the medical records for a full picture? Did the reporter talk to the children? What were in the police records that led to children being taken in the first place? Were their background checks done on the parents? Any reputable journalist should be digging deeper than this and providing a full unbiased reporting on all of the facts, not just what fits their narrative. I expected much better from Serial.