Ashley Flowers has become a well-known name in the podcast world. Her podcasts are constantly at the top of the charts, with ‘Crime Junkie’ being the #1 true crime podcast, proving that she is not only an incredible storyteller but an amazing researcher as well. Not to mention that she is the author of a fictional book called, “All Good People Here”, Mom and CEO.
She started her career with the podcast ‘Crime Junkie’ which quickly gained traction and has about 10 million listeners every week. Each episode covers a variety of cases, including solved cases and cold cases.
Flowers now owns her own podcast and media network, “Audiochuck” based out of Indianapolis, and has 35 employees. She worked hard to make ‘Crime Junkie’ and her podcast network successful, but with every story of success, there are bumps along the way.
Where It All Began
According to this article written by Scott Swan, WTHR[1], Ashley Flowers recalls the time when she was recording her hit show ‘Crime Junkie’ in a spare room in her home. At first, she wasn’t sold on the idea of even listening to a podcast, but after binging the hit podcast ‘Serial’, she found a newfound love for the podcast world.
We can give major credit to her ‘Crime Junkie’ co-host Brit Prawat for pushing her to listen to Serial in the first place.
According to the Goal Digger Podcast[2], Ashley came up with the name ‘Crime Junkie’ after searching for true crime content that she couldn’t really find. She decided to start her own show to fill in the gap, hoping that other people were looking for the same void to fill, and boy was she right.
‘Crime Junkie’ was never really a passion project, and Flowers stated in the podcast that she created the intention of making it a business. In order to meet that goal, she recalled having basically “no life” for a year to dedicate all of her free time to in hopes of making her podcast successful.
Accusations of Plagiarism
Early in her podcasting career, Flowers was accused of plagiarism. Some allegations even accused her of copying their work verbatim.
In a ‘Crime Junkie’ episode about Kristen Hatfield, Flowers is accused of making a “lazy copy” of Paula Zahn’s episode, “Taken From Her Bed” on Reddit. Commenters on the same post agreed with the original poster and pointed out other episodes that seemed to be copied straight from Wikipedia.
In a now-deleted post on Flowers’ Facebook page, she was accused of copying Cathy Frye’s copyrighted work almost verbatim, by the writer herself:
“At one point, you quoted a portion of MY copyrighted story almost verbatim,” Frye wrote in her post, directed at Flowers. “I then started listening to your other podcasts and – SURPRISE! – discovered that you don’t cite sources or credit news organizations.”
It was pointed out by Variety Magazine that before the accusations of plagiarism, ‘Crime Junkie’ episodes rarely cited their sources in the actual podcast episode.
There were many other counts of writers and enthusiasts alike, reprimanding the podcast for copying other people’s work without giving the proper credit.
Ashley Flowers Responds to Accusations of Plagiarism
According to Variety Magazine Flowers made this statement, “we recently made the decision to pull down several episodes from our main feed when their source material could no longer be found or properly cited. Since then, we’ve worked to put additional controls in place to address any gaps moving forward.”
She goes on to praise investigators and reporters by saying that the work at ‘Crime Junkie’ wouldn’t be possible without their incredible efforts and they deserve to be credited for their work. She commits herself to working with the “burgeoning podcast industry to develop and evolve its standards on these kinds of issues.”[3].
While she never admitted guilt. She took steps to amend her actions by removing 5 episodes from the ‘Crime Junkie’ lineup.
Making Things Right
‘Crime Junkie’ now cites their sources in the podcast audio as well as in the show notes for each podcast episode. Flowers makes it a point to highlight the efforts of the investigative journalists, writers, and other sources that she uses.
She now has a team of dedicated employees to help her create content that we can all enjoy knowing that the proper credit has been given.
References
[1] WTHR, Scott Swann, “‘Queen of True Crime’ expands podcasting business in Indianapolis” – ‘Queen of True Crime’ expands podcasting business in Indianapolis
[2] Jenna Kutcher Blog, “Crime Junkie Creator Ashley Flowers Shares Her Secrets to Podcasting Success” – https://jennakutcherblog.com/ashleyflowers/
[3] Variety Magazine, “‘Crime Junkie’ Podcast Host Ashley Flowers Responds to Plagiarism Allegations”. – https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/crime-junkie-podcast-ashley-flowers-plagiarism-1203302072/
Podcasts Hosted by the Iconic True Crime Junkie, Ashley Flowers. – Your Next Podcast
Tuesday 29th of August 2023
[…] took off quickly and soon it was at the top of the podcast charts. Even though she encountered some bumps in the road, Crime Junkie remains at the top of the charts […]