I've had issues with Pretend for ages, things like Javier consistently getting people's names wrong (including his editor somehow???). I've overlooked a lot because he finds super interesting stories. I even joined the Patreon.
However the episode where he talks about the murder of Kitty Genovese is inexcusable. There has been so much information about how the initial reporting on her murder and the "bystander effect" was blatantly false, but he cited the false reporting in depth with a level of severity that clearly showed he hadn't done the most basic work. When it was pointed out in his Patreon, along with the context of how afraid the community was of cops, and how it was before the 911 system, among other actual facts, he admitted to only using one source and saying the episode was "a rush job" and that he had mainly focused on the other story in the episode. What an absurd excuse for a journalist to use for passionately spreading complete misinformation.
As of 10/01/25 he has not updated the episode description to reflect that he's aware of the misinformation. I don't know if he's fixed it within the episode, but I'd rather not listen. It's really the last straw for me.
It's a bad podcast with sometimes-compelling narration...
