Believed
Storytelling > True Stories
About the Podcast
How did an Olympic gymnastics doctor, get away with abusing hundreds of women and girls for two decades? People around the world were stunned in early 2018 when more than 150 women testified at the sentencing of Larry Nassar, the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor who sexually abused patients for more than 20 years. Believed is a podcast from Michigan Radio and NPR. Through survivors' untold stories, interviews with parents and detectives, and recordings from police investigations with Nassar, Believed gives us an inside look at how a team of women won a conviction in one of the largest serial sexual abuse cases in U.S. history. It's a story of survivors finding their power in a cultural moment when people are coming to understand how important that is. It's also an unnerving exploration of how even well-meaning adults can fail to believe.
About the Host
Kate Wells and Lindsey Smith
Lindsey Smith is Michigan Radio’s Investigative Reporter. She previously served as Michigan Radio's West Michigan Reporter. Lindsey’s work has been repeatedly recognized by the Michigan Association of Broadcasters and Michigan Associated Press. She co-wrote and co-hosted the 2018 Peabody award winning podcast, Believed, about how former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar got away with sexual abuse for decades. Her 2015 documentary about the Flint water crisis, Not Safe to Drink, won the station a national Edward R. Murrow Award, an Alfred I. duPont - Columbia University Award, and a Third Coast/Richard H. Driehaus Award. The Detroit chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists named her "Young Journalist of the Year" in 2014 and “Journalist of the Year” in 2018. She’s a graduate of Eastern Michigan University and Specs Howard School of Media Arts.
Kate Wells is a Peabody Award-winning journalist and co-host of the Michigan Radio and NPR podcast Believed. The series was widely ranked among the best of the year, drawing millions of downloads and numerous awards. She and co-host Lindsey Smith received the prestigious Livingston Award for Young Journalists. Judges described their work as "a haunting and multifaceted account of U.S.A. Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar’s belated arrest and an intimate look at how an army of women – a detective, a prosecutor and survivors – brought down the serial sex offender." Wells and her family live in Ann Arbor, Michigan.