In the Dark

APM Reports' In the Dark won a Peabody Award for Season 2, which investigated Curtis Flowers—a Black man tried six times for the same crime by the same Mississippi prosecutor. Reporter Madeleine Baran's exhaustive work was directly cited by the U.S. Supreme Court when it overturned his conviction in 2019, a rare and powerful example of podcasting affecting legal outcomes. Season 1’s examination of Jacob Wetterling's abduction similarly spurred a confession after 27 years. With a 100% success rate in generating new leads across its seasons, it is 60% more impactful than #5 Someone Knows Something, setting the benchmark for accountability-focused investigative journalism.