Podcast Review: Broken Harts

Last Updated on December 3, 2019

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This is a podcast review of the Broken Harts podcast. This review may contain some spoilers.

I recently listened to 7 episodes of the new podcast Broken Harts. The show has more episodes to come and new episodes drop every Tuesday.

The podcast takes an in-depth look at the family behind one of 2018's most devastating news stories: the deaths of 4 children and their adoptive moms.

Two other siblings in the family are missing and presumed dead. And the worst part: Authorities believe that the incident that led to those deaths was not an accident.

The Broken Harts podcast is a joint production by Glamour and HowStuffWorks. It takes a hard look at the women at the center of the Hart family, how they came to be adoptive parents, the allegations of child abuse against them, and much more.

I wanted to understand the story behind the tragedy, and find out how many of the news reports I had read were factual, and how many were sensationalized.

What's Glamour got to do with it?

I'll be the first to admit that I was puzzled when I heard that Glamour and HowStuffWorks partnered up on this podcast. I was able to quickly wrap my head around HowStuffWorks' involvement; it has been producing more investigative and true crime shows lately.

Glamour really threw me for a loop, though. I'm not a reader of their publication (in print or online), and they are not the first brand I think of when I want in-depth journalism on death, crime, or the broken child welfare system.

It seems that both Glamour's features editor and books editor shared a common interest in the Hart story when they heard about it last year. They co-host the podcast and enlisted the help of an investigative journalist to help them get the details needed to flesh out this story.

The photos and video that accompany the podcast can be found on Glamour's website, which is a bit odd to me. Again, this is because I'm unfamiliar with the brand. I did not judge this podcast by its branding or production, though. From the moment I heard the trailer, I knew it would be professionally produced and intriguing, so this isn't something that you need to worry about.

Making sense of Broken Harts

I had a hard time organizing my thoughts and feelings about this podcast (it took me forever to write this review). If I’m being honest, I think it’s because the podcast itself seemed slightly disorganized and confusing.

I have to start with this detail: The story is told by three females, two of which sound a lot alike. There was at least one moment while listening to every episode in which I thought, “Who is talking right now?” It didn’t make for bad reporting, just some confusing listening.

(If you think I'm being nitpicky about this, I recently attended a panel of podcasters and podcast listeners at PodCon, and "hosts with similar voices" was high on the list of pet peeves listeners have.)

I also felt like the first 4 or 5 episodes of the show were repetitive at times, and that the production team wasn't sure how to arrange some of the information.

On the edge of my seat...at first

The first three episodes of Broken Harts present the history of the two moms in this story, Jen and Sarah Hart. Episodes 1-3 tell how Jen and Sarah met, their early life together, and their journey to becoming foster parents, and eventually adoptive parents.

The foundation of most episodes is the reading of Facebook posts from Jen Hart. Jen was one of those people who posted online frequently, and with long, detailed stories and thoughts.

The hosts of Broken Harts (or one of them, it's hard to tell who) reads Jen’s posts, word-for-word, to really paint the picture that Jen herself painted for the friends, family, and even strangers who followed her and the Hart family online.

I imagine that the creators of the podcast chose this approach because there’s little else to go on in order to get to know any of the 6 members of the Hart family.

There are interviews with friends and neighbors, but since a major theme of the podcast is that, in hindsight, no one is sure if they really knew Jen and Sarah, the hosts go right to the source: Jen's social media persona.

I found these first three episodes, and Jen’s Facebook posts, fascinating. If you’re not hanging on Jen’s every word, I’ll be surprised.

But by the end of episode 3, I was ready for something more. More back story about the kids, more about the adoption process, and details of the allegations of child abuse against the Hart moms - something that is teased over and over again throughout the podcast.

Unfortunately, episodes 4 and 5 didn’t deliver as much as I was hoping for. Episode 4, in particular, seemed unfocused and opened with a promise that wasn’t realized by the end of the episode.

Episode 6, which spoke to a number of social issues surrounding the adoptions of the Hart children, gives listeners a lot to chew on. But as interesting as that episode was, it seemed to present a lot of questions that were left unanswered.

I will cut the podcast team some slack here. I imagine that unresolved issues and unanswered questions were the main challenges that they grappled with when putting this story together. Still, I don't like that they passed this problem onto you and me, the listeners.

Speculation vs. Journalism

Investigative podcasts like Broken Harts have seen massive success recently, probably because so many fall into the general true crime genre. Many of these podcasts (though not all) are presented by journalists who do their best to remain unbiased while presenting the facts.

This is not the case with Broken Harts.

There are a few insinuations here and there in the first few episodes. Like when one of the hosts suggests that a Hart child did something on video because the mother behind the camera was instructing him to do it. But what does that really tell us?

Parents have their kids do things in front of the camera all the time. My parents did it back in the 80s, just to get a cute photo. Lots of kids are YouTube millionaires because their parents have them do cutesy things; that doesn't mean those kids are being abused or in a life-threatening situation.

Many times I felt like the hosts were prosecutors presenting a case in court. They presented a lot of circumstantial evidence, but also made leading statements that the defense would object to.

In the latest episode (the seventh), a host basically said that it was a foregone conclusion that one of the Hart moms had a mental illness.

As far as I can tell, there isn’t a lot of hard evidence that can prove anything in this case. At least not according to law enforcement or Child Protective Services.

Although the podcast includes first-hand accounts of interactions with the Hart moms and kids, much of what makes this story so confusing and upsetting is that no one really knows the whole truth.

So, I can see how it would be easy to speculate and jump to conclusions. And I’m actually inclined to agree with a lot of what Broken Harts insinuates. The problem is that I didn't come to those conclusions by myself. The podcast didn't give me the opportunity to analyze and think about the facts or evidence on my own.

To me, Broken Harts is journalism with a twist. Unfortunately, that's not what I was looking for.

[bctt tweet="Broken Harts is journalism with a twist. Unfortunately, that’s not what I was looking for." username="Podcast_Maniac"]

Poor judgement on ads

I cannot finish this review without talking about the ads in all of the Broken Harts episodes.

I've talked about this in other podcast reviews, and I'm very much aware that it's a pet peeve of mine. So if you don't care about the ads during podcasts, or you do care but you've already made up your mind about listening to Broken Harts, feel free to skip this portion of the review.

Let me start out by saying that I love ads and commercials. I have a background in Marketing, and when I was little, my parents called me "the commercial kid". I don't skip ads or commercials, whether I'm watching TV or listening to the radio or a podcast.

There are two things that irk me, though:

1. Poorly executed transitions into ads

2. Ads that seem out of place/context with the podcast content

Broken Harts is guilty of both of these things. Every episode of the podcast starts with an ad for a different podcast. And I don't mean that the hosts introduced the episodes and then took an early ad break. The first audio you hear at the start of every episode is an ad.

It's a bit jarring, because you're expecting to be thrown into the dark and intriguing podcast...but that doesn't happen right away.

The rest of the ad breaks are equally startling. They're just...THERE. There is no announcement of a break, and only a slight 2 seconds of music or pause prior to the ad starting.

But let's say I could get past the bad transitions, and get my bearings. I would have to overlook the fact that the ads were often upbeat and jovial, and very much out of place (not to mention insensitive) given the subject matter of Broken Harts.

This podcast is emotional on many levels. Not only is it sad and gut-wrenching to imagine how the Hart children came to their untimely deaths, but it's infuriating to hear how it could have been prevented, and confusing to imagine how the Hart moms could have done the unthinkable.

In the middle of all this raw emotion - BAM! - you're served an ad for a totally unrelated podcast, in a way that's more than a little weird and uncomfortable. (It's like a comedian standing up and promoting himself in the middle of a funeral.)

Every time an ad would break in, I couldn't help but wish that more podcast producers would take the path of the folks at In The Dark. Their ad breaks are in-line with the tone and message of their content.

Surprise: I recommend this podcast

While writing part of this review, I turned to my husband and said, "I think I just wrote my most critical review about a podcast that I do actually like."

Surprised? Me too. After all is said and done, I can't help but find myself waiting for Tuesday morning for the next episode of Broken Harts to drop.

Part of that is definitely curiosity. And a little rubber-necking. Because it's an intriguing, mysterious, and unbelievably sad story. I just want to know more. There's a part of me that wants the podcast to satisfy my curiosity, even if I don't like the manner in which it goes about doing so.

So, I do recommend that you listen to Broken Harts. Just don't expect it to be perfect.

Your Turn

Have you listened to Broken Harts? What did you think? Leave a comment below with your reactions & thoughts.

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