Skip to main content

In the DarkSeason 3

Listen to the trailer
On November 19, 2005, a small group of U.S. Marines killed twenty-four civilians in Haditha, Iraq. The case against them would become one of the most high-profile war-crimes prosecutions in American history, and then it would all fall apart. On Season 3 of the New Yorker investigative podcast, Madeleine Baran and the In the Dark team examine what happened that day in Haditha—and why no one was held accountable. Read more»
Listen to the trailer
00:00 / 02:48
Illustrations by Emiliano Ponzi

This season of In the Dark won the Pulitzer Prize for audio reporting.

Episodes

The Haditha Massacre Photos That the Military Didn’t Want the World to See

By Madeleine Baran
Illustration of military documents.

The War Crimes That the Military Buried

The largest known database of possible American war crimes committed in Iraq and Afghanistan shows that the military-justice system rarely punishes perpetrators.

By Parker Yesko
Image may contain: Fire

Cleared by Fire

An immersive interactive documentary from In the Dark examines differing narratives about the killing of twenty-four civilians in Haditha, Iraq, on November 19, 2005.

Directed by David Kofahl and Sam Wolson

This project was supported by the Pulitzer Center.

Related Stories

Your Season 3 Questions, Answered

By Madeleine Baran

Was it scary to knock on all those Marines’ doors? What was it like to report in Iraq? Is it still possible for any Marines to face consequences for what happened in Haditha? The In the Dark team sits down to answer your questions.

Season 3 Bonus: “Cleared by Fire”

By Madeleine Baran

The New Yorker’s Sam Wolson, who co-directed a visual exploration of what happened that day in Haditha, joins the podcast to talk about the project.

An American War Crime

By Willing Davidson

In the Dark investigates the events in Haditha, Iraq, and compiles a database to show the inherent problem of the military judging its own members.

Image may contain: Light, Person, and Forge

Behind the Scenes of In the Dark’s Season 3

The creators of the acclaimed investigative series talk about reporting on the military, elevating the testimony of survivors, and the challenges of visualizing what happened that day in Haditha.

Image may contain: Ground, Plant, and Tree

Season 1

Eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling disappeared in October, 1989. Why did it take nearly twenty-seven years to solve the crime?
Image may contain: Prison
Ben Depp

Season 2

A Black man on death row in Mississippi spent more than twenty years fighting for his life. A white prosecutor was trying just as hard to execute him.

The Runaway Princesses

Episode 1: Sisters

By Madeleine Baran and Heidi Blake

Why the daughters of the ruler of Dubai decided to escape his control.

Episode 2: Escape

By Madeleine Baran and Heidi Blake

After Princess Shamsa was caught trying to flee her father, Princess Latifa decided to make her own attempt.

Episode 3: A Nice Lunch

By Madeleine Baran and Heidi Blake

Aboard a yacht in the Arabian Sea, Latifa was briefly free. Then commandos stormed the boat.

Support Our Journalism

Readers make The New Yorker’s in-depth reporting and cultural commentary possible. Subscribe today.

Subscribe
The New Yorker Newsletter

Sign up to receive the best of The New Yorker, every day, in your in-box, plus occasional news alerts.

Read More
The New Yorker Radio Hour
A Palestinian Journalist Escapes Death in Gaza
The reporter Mohammed R. Mhawish was targeted in an Israeli air strike. He lived, and escaped Gaza. He continues to report on the deprivation and challenges of people trapped in the war.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Donald Trump’s War on Culture Is Not a Sideshow
Adam Gopnik discusses the Administration’s moves to dictate what is acceptable and unacceptable in American culture, and why pluralism remains essential to democracy.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Dexter Filkins on Drones and the Future of Warfare
Rapid changes in technology are rendering American supremacy in highly advanced, expensive weapons a thing of the past. Can the military adapt in time for the next conflict?
The New Yorker Radio Hour
How Extreme Heat Affects the Body
Dhruv Khullar, who reports on medicine for The New Yorker, investigates the medical effects of extreme heat.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Your Questions Answered: Trump vs. the Rule of Law
Jeannie Suk Gersen and Ruth Marcus, who write about the law for The New Yorker, address listeners’ pressing questions about the Trump Administration’s legal controversies.
Takes
Andrew Marantz on Janet Flanner’s “Führer”
Flanner’s tone was cool and ironic, above taking sides. But, in a Profile of Adolf Hitler, refusing to take sides can be a way to miss the story.
The Political Scene Podcast
How Bad Is It?: Trump’s Self-Dealing and the Question of Kleptocracy
Trump’s eagerness to profit from office may be putting the U.S. on a path resembling that of an oligarchy.
Q. & A.
What Is Benjamin Netanyahu Really After?
Amos Harel, a defense analyst at Haaretz, on what’s behind Netanyahu’s push to reoccupy Gaza City, and how the Israeli Prime Minister has changed since the war began.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Fred Armisen on “100 Sound Effects”
The comedian talks about his new album, a sound-effects record for the modern era, with the staff writer Michael Schulman.
The New Yorker Radio Hour
Spike Lee and Denzel Washington on a Reunion Making “Highest 2 Lowest”
The director and the actor discuss their latest collaboration, nineteen years after their previous film together. “Time flies,” Lee says. “I didn’t know it had been that long.”
The Lede
The Troubling Lines That Columbia Is Drawing
By adopting an overly broad and controversial definition of antisemitism, the university is putting both academic freedom and its Jewish students at risk.
Takes
Nathan Heller on E. B. White’s Paragraph About the Moon Landing
What sort of response could measure up to the occasion? White’s idea was as simple as it was audacious.