Elizabeth Smart's True-Crime Podcast Centers the Survivors

Elizabeth Smart isn't turning away from true crime. Instead, she's trying to rewire it. The now-38-year-old kidnapping survivor is hosting a new weekly podcast, The Survivor Files With Elizabeth Smart, that shifts the focus from grisly details to what happens after the headlines fade, including recovery and the long, uneven work of healing, per the New York Times. The 48-episode iHeartPodcasts series features in-depth conversations with people who've endured violent crimes, including teen serial-killer escapee Kara Robinson Chamberlain in the debut episode.

Smart says she has guests walk listeners through what happened and what they were thinking in the moment, in part to counter the armchair criticism that survivors often face. She emphasizes that there's no standard timetable for healing and no single way forward. Smart, whose own 2002 abduction drew massive national coverage, also addresses "missing white woman syndrome," saying her case likely received attention because she was white, blond, and from an affluent area—and that she wants to use her platform to broaden whose stories get told. "I want this podcast to remind people that we are more than what we experience, and that we are so much stronger than we believed," Smart says in a release.