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I'm a Chicago Public Radio member and just got this in my email. Wow: I’m writing to tell you that tonight, This American Life and Marketplace will reveal that a story that we broadcast on This American Life this past January contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting that story because we can’t vouch for its truth, and this weekend's episode of our show will detail the errors in the story, which was an exc…
I don't know about the specifics of this report, but Marketplace last month had another emotional story turn out to be false. Perhaps that is what prompted Rob? Retraction: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/commentary/returni... Story about the fabriaction: http://jimromenesko.com/2012/02/02/marketplace-scolded-for-a... I listen to Marketplace everyday, and I just donated to both groups because it takes a lot…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know about the specifics of this report, but Marketplace last month had another emotional story turn out to be false. Perhaps that is what prompted Rob? Retraction: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/commentary/returni... Story about the fabriaction: http://jimromenesko.com/2012/02/02/marketplace-scolded-for-a... I listen to Marketplace everyday, and I just donated to both groups because it takes a lot…
I'm sorry, but the marketplace slip up seems pretty inexcusable. I could see if the guy had maybe not earned some medals he claimed he had, or if he was lower rank than he claimed, but he claimed to be a returning veteran and was never even in the army. Maybe it's just me, but verifying his army background and veteran status would be the first thing I would check going with a story titled, "Returning veteran has few…
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Nope - This American Life is in no way affiliated with NPR (other than that they are often carried on the same stations.) This American Life is produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International. Lots of TLAs there, but no NPR!
Good to know! Just wondered if there were any interesting connections here... This American Life is carried on NPR, funded by Bill Gates, doing a hit piece on Apple Factories (which are also Microsoft factories, but this isn't the Agony and Ecstasy of Bill Gates). Definitely there are some financial connections involved given that as you said This American Life is carried on NPR stations but I don't think there was a…
Furthermore, The Bill & Melinda Gates foundation has no connection to Microsoft, and even if it did, it would make no sense for Microsoft to put out a hit on Apple by way of Foxconn: Foxconn makes a lot of hardware for Microsoft.
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Nope - This American Life is in no way affiliated with NPR (other than that they are often carried on the same stations.) This American Life is produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International. Lots of TLAs there, but no NPR!
Good to know! Just wondered if there were any interesting connections here... This American Life is carried on NPR, funded by Bill Gates, doing a hit piece on Apple Factories (which are also Microsoft factories, but this isn't the Agony and Ecstasy of Bill Gates). Definitely there are some financial connections involved given that as you said This American Life is carried on NPR stations but I don't think there was a…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The follow-up airing this weekend sounds more interesting than the original piece, which I didn't even finish. Daisey's whole approach just struck me as slapdash and self-indulgent. I find the Planet Money team's approach (whose stories are often featured on This American Life) much more insightful.
True, Planet Money rocks my world. Check out the Econtalk podcast with Russ Roberts for where they get some of their inspiration and data. It's a much deeper economics dive, hour long and tends to be Hayekian as opposed to PM which is firmly Keynesian.
from http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed-ap... : I pressed Cathy to confirm other key details that Daisey reported. Did the guards have guns when you came here with Mike Daisey? With each question I got the same answer from Lee. “No,” or “This is not true.” Daisey claims he met underage workers at Foxconn. He says he talked to a man whose hand was twisted into a claw from making iPads. He descri…
Has no one considered the possibility that this Chinese citizen, who lives and works in China, might not be well served by asserting the truth of Daisey's story? His apology seems to concede a fair amount of dramatization, and he didn't (in advance of hearing the Ira/Mike conversation) appear to assert the truth of those specific parts of the story. But supposing he did stand by some of these details, we'd have a he…
I'm a Chicago Public Radio member and just got this in my email. Wow: I’m writing to tell you that tonight, This American Life and Marketplace will reveal that a story that we broadcast on This American Life this past January contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting that story because we can’t vouch for its truth, and this weekend's episode of our show will detail the errors in the story, which was an exc…
During the original piece, host Ira Glass gives the impression that they were originally sceptical, saying that they "actually spent a few weeks checking everything that he says in his show." So I guess they need to check a bit harder next time... Full quote: "When I saw Mike Daisey perform this story on stage, when I left the theater I had a lot of questions. I mean, he's not a reporter, and I wondered, did he get i…
adding “this is theater,” he said. “Not journalism.”
unbelievable. shameless.
from http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed-ap... : I pressed Cathy to confirm other key details that Daisey reported. Did the guards have guns when you came here with Mike Daisey? With each question I got the same answer from Lee. “No,” or “This is not true.” Daisey claims he met underage workers at Foxconn. He says he talked to a man whose hand was twisted into a claw from making iPads. He descri…
Just to be clear, Rob Schmitz, the Marketplace reporter breaking this story, reported on underage workers making Apple products for Marketplace, last year: http://www.marketplace.org/topics/business/apple-economy/app...
Note, the claim Schmitz is actually refuting is not that underage workers are employed making Apple products, but instead that Mr. Daisey saw underage workers - and to do so, he literally employs, he-said she-said.
Furthermore, Mr. Schmitz has reported (again for Marketplace) on ordinary Chinese reporting to have been threatened for speaking ill of Apple:
I recently returned to Tongxin village to see if things
had changed since Kaedar shut down the production lines.
This time, nobody wanted to talk to me. Some people hid
in their homes when they saw me.
When I ask two men about the pollution, they say, "What
pollution?' There's no pollution here." Another man said he
and others who spoke to journalists have been threatened --
he angrily accused me of working for Apple.
I ask one woman if she's been threatened.
"I don't know," she says nervously.
But then Dong Qiaozhen invites me inside her house.
Dong Qiaozhen: Yes, we've been threatened.
Village officials have warned us not to talk to
reporters about the pollution.
I'm a Chicago Public Radio member and just got this in my email. Wow: I’m writing to tell you that tonight, This American Life and Marketplace will reveal that a story that we broadcast on This American Life this past January contained significant fabrications. We’re retracting that story because we can’t vouch for its truth, and this weekend's episode of our show will detail the errors in the story, which was an exc…
Daisey responds: "It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity". Calling to mind Jack Shafer (now at Reuters, formally Slate's media critic) on the problematic nature of narrative journalism: http://blogs.reuters.com/jackshafer/2012/03/14/dismantling-t...
Whatever the case, the frequency of reported cases in the mass media is significant. Poynter has been tracking it for years; here are some of the reported cases from last year:
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/regret-the-error/156485/o...