Hi, everybody.
This is Josh Mankiewicz.
And is that supposed to be a good thing?
This is where you say your names.
Okay.
Let's just move right on as if nothing had happened.
I'm here with Andrea Canning.
Hi, Andrea.
And Dennis Murphy.
Hey, Josh.
Some other guy.
What's his name?
What is your name again?
I forgot.
I'm not entirely sure of most of the names.
And you are?
I would know you from?
I am the not Mankiewicz portion of this program.
That's right.
And we're here to talk about the upcoming Dateline season, which starts this Friday.
Now, a couple of things.
One, the beginning of the season... might be more important technically than it is literally to us.
Since for us, the season never actually ends.
We just keep going all year long.
It's not like we have the summer off.
And in fact, we've all been at work on new episodes.
And one more thing we're not going to say what the premiere episode is until the the end of this little podcast, because we want you to keep listening.
And also because at this moment, I don't actually know.
I was going to say, if you know, I don't know why you're withholding it.
I actually don't know right now. what the premiere episode is going to be.
But by the time this podcast is available to you, the home viewer and listener for whom we do all of this, you will know, because the promos will be everywhere.
One of the things we're going to talk about today is what everybody is working on.
And I want to start with Andrea.
Yes.
First, I'll just say that Josh and I have semi-regular conversations about life, right?
Yes, they're usually about how we regard Dennis benevolently, but Keith not so much.
That's all perfectly reasonable.
Yeah, I get that teaser ahead.
There's something coming that we're going to talk about josh's personal life, so how's that?
For a reason to stick around, you got me.
Wow, wait for that.
That's pretty good.
Yeah, i was last through the spoiler alert when i heard it.
It's big news so okay, back to work.
Yes, I am working on, of course, the Gilgo Beach serial killer out on Long Island.
That has a lot of people talking.
And we have been working on it the entire summer, getting new interviews with people who have never talked before, and also talk to the district attorney, talk to the police, commissioner.
It's a fascinating story with so many layers to it.
And we've really peeled back the onion on that one.
So if you think you know that story, you really don't, because there's so much more to the story, which is what makes it so interesting too.
Everybody that I talk to, everybody I talk with who's not working at Dateline, like people who walk up to me at airports, friends of mine, cops that I've interviewed they all say the same thing, which is are you doing that?
Gilgo Beach story.
And I'm like, it's not me, but we are doing it.
I covered Suffolk County, Long Island, back 1986 to 1991 when I was Long Island correspondent at Channel 2 in New York.
And the Suffolk Police Department then was quite different from the Suffolk Police Department of today.
Mm-hmm.
There was a state report that came out when I was Long Island correspondent.
And I still remember that one of the things it said was that Suffolk PD was more like a boys club than it was a police department.
And as an investigative agency, it was not one that other police departments took as seriously.
And clearly, with this new chief and that new DA, things have changed.
The new commissioner came from NYPD and the DA just went so in depth in the case, which surprised me how much information he gave us.
And I actually covered this case, uh, Back in, you know, when it happened in 2010.
So for me, now it's come full circle.
Now that we have someone accused of some of these crimes, it was interesting to get back into the into the mix on that story.
It also kind of stands on its head a sort of popular perception which is the police departments don't work hard, when the people who are victims are sex workers.
And that may at one time have been true, and it has been true in other cases in other jurisdictions.
I'm not saying that that criticism is unwarranted, but it certainly was not true here.
Certainly not the ending.
You know, if this is, if if Rex Huerman is the killer of some of these women, as he's been accused, it certainly shows you that they did care, that they reopened it and they put a huge team on it to solve it.
So, yeah, it was nice to see that these women didn't fall through the cracks.
We're doing this thing which you're going to hear more and more of if you're a podcast listener called Talking Dateline, in which two of us talk about the story that aired that Friday.
And it's going to appear a couple of days later in the podcast lineup.
I did one with Andrea, and I did one with Keith and I just did one with Dennis.
That has not been made available yet.
That I would like to hear.
Well, it's very good.
Good.
I'm sure it is.
And we just did it, and it will be available shortly.
What was it about, Dennis?
I feel like this is the first day of school and the teacher's asking us what we did last summer.
I do, too.
What did you talk to Josh about, Dennis?
There seemed to be two certainties that the sun will come up in the east in the morning, and if a woman has gone missing on dateline, the husband didn't.
I mean, those are things that you can take to the bank.
And what I love about this story, without getting too far down spoiler road, is it stood all expectations of what a Dateline story is right on its head.
It's completely different.
It's about a woman in Ohio who went missing for four months.
And finally she was found, and then it became an issue for a jury.
Was this a murder, and who did it?
Or was this a suicide, and was it staged to look like a murder?
I saw this and I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through.
What I love is the whole community goes looking for the missing person, as happens in these things.
It's meat at the supermarket, there's flyers.
Million people go out, there's dogs, there's helicopters.
But there were three women in particular who went searching above and beyond.
And I tell you, it makes the hair on my neck stand up when they actually find something four months in.
And they are absolutely terrified at what it is.
I'm in.
You good?
Sure.
I've got to watch it now.
Yeah, that does it for me.
It's great.
It's called The Clearing.
You liked it, Josh?
Oh, I liked it.
I thought it was terrific.
Good title, too, The Clearing.
Yeah, it's good.
This is where we don't write the titles, right?
For whatever reason, this one became The Clearing.
And I tell you, I met a criminal defense lawyer in this case who what a phenomenal for people like courtroom stories.
We haven't done too many in-court stories, it seems to me, in a while.
She is absolutely great.
She gives a master class on how to hold a jury's attention.
Mm-hmm.
One of the things I really liked about this was that in a lot of cases that we do, by the time we get to the trial, it's already pretty clear what happened.
And the mystery at that point has shifted to, Are they going to get away with it?
In this case, this was like a courtroom movie, because you really don't know how it's going to come out.
It could go either way.
Wow.
Yeah, yeah.
So it's still in post-production, but we think it's going to turn out pretty well.
Hope we don't put a jinx on it.
Keith?
Yes, sir.
You're doing so many things, I don't even know what to say or what to start with.
That is not a fact.
I know that you are.
I'm listening to you and how busy you all are.
And I'm feeling as if I'm not doing enough.
I'm going to say about this story.
This is a fascinating tale.
I guess you would have to call it a police procedural.
It's a mystery story in which the person being sought is a ghost, a disappearing ghost.
And they chase from one province to another province, to the coast, to jet skis on the water, to all kinds of places, when they finally catch up to him.
It isn't him.
They got the wrong guy.
Who is the right guy?
We don't know because the right guy is the wrong guy and the wrong guy is the right guy.
It's all very confusing, but it's a fascinating tale in beautiful places.
Yes, there's a wonderful behind the scenes story, which Keith, I know, is dying to tell, but I'm going to tell it instead because, spoiler alert, Keith is not dying to tell it.
Keith is wishing that I don't speak anymore, but unfortunately there's no shutting me up, as you guys have figured out by now.
So here's the thing.
One of the things that happened in this story of Keith's is that one of the people involved this guy who was at one time the suspect made his escape on a jet ski.
Now, as you just heard Keith mention now in television, that is a classic opportunity for like one of us, to get on a jet.
Oh, did you stand up?
Well, that's what I would do.
You're on a jet ski?
Andrea, you would absolutely do that.
I know you would.
I've seen you hanging off a mountain.
I would do it because I've always wanted to be on a jet ski.
Keith, however, refused is my understanding.
Absolutely.
I wouldn't go anywhere near it.
That's performative.
One doesn't do that sort of thing.
Performative.
This is very late in the game to dig in your heels on performative.
And now I also want to talk about Murder in Apartment 12, Keith's original podcast.
I believe that by the time this airs, the first two episodes of that will be available.
It's an extraordinary story that involves making assumptions about things and the trouble that an assumption can cause.
And that trouble can last for a long time.
But the story called Murder in Apartment 12 is one I've been covering for a long time.
And it's finally ready to tell on the podcast.
I'm happy to do it.
And this is something if you are a Dateline Premium subscriber, you can listen to the thing without commercials and get it ahead of time.
Oh, yeah.
One thing.
I gather that among Dateline podcast listeners there is some confusion as to whether or not you have to be premium to hear all the podcast episodes of the original podcast.
And the answer is you don't have to be.
No. and if you are a podcast subscriber even if you're not a premium podcast subscriber you will still hear all of our podcast episodes you may not get them at the same time that the premium subscribers do and you will listen to the ads which the premium subscribers don't but If you're a Dateline podcast subscriber, you will hear all the episodes of Keith's original podcast or any other.
Josh, do you have one coming up?
I do have a couple of television episodes coming, a couple of them in Texas, one in which there are literally so many twists that I'm going to say at the beginning of it that when you think you know what happened here, you're going to be wrong.
And then later you'll think, okay, now I understand it.
And you'll be wrong again.
It's an amazing story.
Those stories are catnip.
I love it.
It blows away all expectations of what you think you're going to be told.
Yeah.
Yeah, you think you got it, and then you're like, okay, it was not that, it was this.
And you realize, oh, it wasn't that either.
And those are absolutely also my favorite stories.
One more thing I want to mention, Dateline Thursdays begin October 5th at 10 p.m.
Eastern.
We're still going to be on Fridays at 9 p.m.
Eastern, but this is a whole new series of one-hour original Datelines, all of which we've been working on all summer.
And when is the season premiere?
Season premiere is the 29th of September, and October 5th is when the Thursdays begin.
Excellent.
Yes.
Yeah, we just need to talk about Mank's personal news.
Does anyone notice anything different about Josh Mankiewicz?
Well, he's fading away to nothing.
I don't know what the heck's going on with him.
Come on.
Yeah.
Doesn't he look a little more svelte?
Well, that's what I'm saying.
He's fading away to nothing.
He's fading away.
Josh has lost a lot of weight.
Where'd you put it?
I've lost more than 50 pounds.
It's amazing.
My goodness sakes.
Yes.
It's amazing.
And I've done it in answer to your questions or to the questions the audience is going to ask, not through any weight loss drug.
I did it by... avoiding all of the things that we know we're not supposed to eat.
So I haven't had any pizza or burgers or Chinese food or Mexican food or desserts in about five months.
Well, you know what?
Hats off, Josh, for setting a goal for yourself and achieving it like this.
It's really wonderful.
What are your no-no shots?
No bread, no carbs, no nothing, nothing fun?
No bread, no carbs, no sugar, a lot of green vegetables, a lot of salads.
Yeah, no drinking.
I mean, I already didn't drink, so that wasn't really an option.
And exercise, getting on the exercise bicycle every day.
Yeah.
Awesome.
Now, I don't want to do an I told you so, of course.
I hate doing.
I told you so's, but I want to remind you, just remind you that Josh and I did competing diet stories like what's good for you to eat and what isn't good for you to eat.
I remember this.
He was just telling me about it last night when we were talking.
He was telling me about your two stories.
That's right.
I was on Atkins, and I lost a lot of weight.
And Keith was extolling the virtues of exercise, which is what I'm sort of doing now.
Vegetables.
The Jack LaLanne diet.
Yeah.
The truth is, I mean, I'm also doing partly Atkins because I'm also cutting out all the carbs.
So this is a combination of the two.
What I said to Josh was I said you may inspire someone who's been wanting to – start eating healthier, working out.
And this could be their kickstart to say, if Josh can do it, so can I. And why not?
It's a new fall season.
So yeah, it's a new smaller me.
Same annoying personality, however.
That clearly has not changed.
No, some things a diet can't fix.
One of my favorite lines Josh said years ago he got back his DNA swab test and he said he turned out to be 87 sarcastic.
That's accurate.
He didn't need a DNA test for that.
I guess not.
Dennis has a call.
It's my senior producer.
Put them on.
Sure.
Yeah, who is that?
Who is it?
We want to know.
It's Ellen Mason.
Oh, there's trouble.
Ellen, can you hear us?
Maybe she's shy.
Yeah.
Okay well, that was a-, Which is another major point that the people you don't see or names you don't know are the ones that really keep us all going, like Helen and my kids.
Very true.
All of the wonderful producers.
That's true.
That's true.
Thank you to all of them for all their hard work.
We're the lucky ones, indeed.
We've been busy.
And everybody else works very hard.
Okay.
Andrea, Dennis, Keith, thank you.
Nice to see all of you in one place because, as you know, we almost never actually see each other in person, and at least this is close enough.
Thank you.
Everybody be careful out there traversing America.
And here's a look at what's going to be this year's Dateline season premiere.
And surprise, it's my story.
And it's about the relationship between murder and geometry.
So, was this a love triangle or something else?
Now, certainly at the beginning, law enforcement had no idea how many angles it had or even the true nature of the crime they were investigating.
They knew it was a murder.
Beyond that, there were a lot of questions.
So you're going to have to decide who's telling the truth, who was not, and as I said earlier...
Every time you think you understand what happened, you're going to be wrong.
So that's our season premiere.
Our season 32 premiere this Friday at 9, 8 central on NBC.
Thanks for listening.
And thanks for watching Dateline.
