I know, I know. It’s been a long time since the series “The Jinx” aired on HBO, and even longer since the NPR podcast “Serial” came out on iTunes. However, I wanted to give the series my full attention, so I started it upon coming home for the summer and finally finished it last night. For the uninitiated: “The Jinx” was a miniseries on HBO that centered on Robert Durst, the son of New York’s most prominent real estate family, who has been accused of committing different murders, each at different times in his life. It was created by filmmaker Andrew Jerecki and his team at Hit the Ground Running Productions. “Serial,” is a podcast wherein journalist Sarah Koenig investigates the case of Adnan Syed, convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend in 2000.

While the people upon whom “The Jinx” and “Serial” have trained their lenses don’t have tons in common (one is the heir to a New York real estate fortune, the other is a high school Homecoming King from Baltimore County), the way the two shows are formatted inspired me to think about what it means to really try to find the truth. Both “The Jinx” and “Serial” are interview-based. Koenig and Jerecki begin their respective discussions with open-ended questions and allow the person to whom they are talking to run with those questions: narrating their story or talking about themselves with few interruptions.

I think many of us have had the experience of listening to an interview with someone who we believe to be guilty of a misdeed and thinking that the interviewer isn’t being straightforward enough. Come on, I think, watching them dance around an issue, nail ‘em. I’m not exactly sure what I expect the interview person to do, yet the fact that she frames questions gently or backs off when Adnan seems uncomfortable or—most damningly—seems to give Adnan the benefit of the doubt makes me fidgety.

Same thing with “The Jinx.” I find myself pacing back and forth watching Andrew Jerecki and Robert Durst sit in comfortable armchairs talking like friends. Even when Jerecki asks the really probing or important questions, the tension between them never escalates to anything even bordering on confrontation.

At first, I believed people like Sarah Koenig and Andrew Jerecki were naïve for giving their subjects so many “chances,” to explain each detail with which they were confronted. Then I realized that all of the available information that makes whatever conclusion we draw seem so obvious is only available because someone was willing to admit that they didn’t know all the answers and asked someone else to tell his or her story, and not just once, either. Koenig and Jerecki spent hundreds of hours talking to their subjects and anyone else who might have something to say about the situations they were researching. Throughout each of their experiences, no matter what was revealed, they remained respectful and open-minded. Most importantly: they never, ever started out with what they believed and looked only for the information that would confirm it.

When there’s something you want to know, it’s hard to be patient with the only person who might have the answer, especially when it seems like that person is withholding the answer on purpose. You probably don’t get the answers you’re looking for if you make it clear that your mind is made up. Maybe it’s best not to make up your mind before you’ve heard everything you possibly can. If you weren’t there when something happened, you don’t know exactly how it happened. You can have a pretty good idea, you can feel fairly certain, but you technically can’t claim to know.

In an interview with Terry Gross on NPR's "Fresh Air" last year, Sarah Koenig described the her relationship with Adnan as follows: "This communication that we have is — there's only one way it can be, and this is the way it can be, which is, neither you nor I trust each other fully, but we proceed as if we do. That's the only way you could have this." If Andrew Jerecki or Sarah Koenig jumped to conclusions as quickly as I did, there would be no shows like “The Jinx” or podcasts like “Serial.” It’s only because Jerecki and Koenig refuse to announce their conclusion until they are certain that no stone has been left unturned that as much information as possible is made available. That’s important. It’s important not only because of what it says about them as journalists and content creators, but also because of what it does for the people directly involved in the case.

Everyone deserves a chance to tell his or her story. It’s only fair. It doesn’t even matter exactly what the person says, as long as we’re listening we’re learning, and therefore never wasting time. So, next time I watch an interview, I will take some deep breaths and let the person asking the questions do his or her job. I will hold off on passing judgment and be patient. Because if I were in that hot seat, that’s what I’d want everyone to do for me.