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This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

thisamericanlife.org

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Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#111

Post by baconner »

evan_ wrote: post #38

I predict that the anti-Apple movement will say that the story was mostly true as told, and any denials by the Chinese interpreter were politically motivated, forced by Foxconn and the Chinese government.

It's not an anti-apple movement its a fair and humane electronics manufacturing labor movement. Apple is a huge and well known brand so they are natural fit for a story, but its also well known and reported that foxconn and friends are widely used by other electronics companies.

These are serious issues about how human beings are treated and they deserve more from than a reframe into a silly tribal squabble over who prefers what brand.

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#112

Post by jonhendry »

twoodfin wrote: post #36
[deleted] wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

Why is Fox "easy"? They've never, AFAIK, broadcast anything requiring a major retraction on the scale of CNN's Tailwind story or CBS and the "fake but accurate" Bush National Guard memos.

If Fox ran corrections, I'm not sure they'd have time for anything else.

Bill O'Reilly's spent days on rants based on deliberately misrepresenting what Sandra Fluke testified about. (1. She wants government to pay for birth control. No, students pay for insurance and wants contraceptives covered by the insurance they pay for. 2. She can't afford birth control but she can fly all over doing interviews. No, she was testifying about other students who had problems affording birth control without insurance, so what Fluke can afford is irrelevant. Etc.)

Fox News's whole raison d'être requires this kind of misinformation.

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#113

Post by rhizome »

aaronharnly wrote: post #57
VMG wrote: post #13

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…

To follow that logic would be a worse case of he-said/she-said journalism than which has been lambasted for for years (and which arguably inspired NPR's recent statement of recommittment to actual journalism).

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#114

Post by VMG »

megaduck wrote: post #87
tptacek wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What "truth" in his story? How do you know? The most dangerous thing you can do with a story like this is try to pick apart the things that seem true; your brain is wired to make the wrong things seem authentic.

I know because I've seen it. My wife and I used to live in China, and we did traveling in both the high and the low places. I can't speak to the particulars in Daisey's story (since I don't know which ones were made up), but the overall picture he painted sounded familiar. It's unquestionable that there are horrible working conditions in Chinese factories. That's the tragedy here. There's millions of awful wonderful…

I'm somewhat interested in a curious technical aspect that Daisey put into the story.

He claimed that something to the effect of "nothing there was made by machine, everything tiny little chip is put there by hand" - which I found hard to believe then and even harder now.

To what extent if any is this true?

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#115

Post by jonhendry »

megaduck wrote: post #22

What's really tragic here is that the truth in Mr. Daisey's story will get dragged down by the weight of his lies. Chinese factory conditions are often horrible, and there's often a blatant disregard for human life and dignity. Mr. Daisey did a pretty good job of conveying these ideas in a way that well-heeled westerners could understand at a gut level. However, his pursuit of storytelling over journalism is going to…

"Chinese factory conditions are often horrible, and there's often a blatant disregard for human life and dignity. "

Yes, and Chinese businesses also put melamine in baby formula sold to Chinese families, that made hundreds or thousands of babies sick, and probably killed some.

Frankly, if the Chinese factories are disregarding human life and dignity, it's probably not something pushed on them by Western companies.

If anything, this kind of Chinese business ethics is something that will impede Western companies trying to clean up their supply chains.

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#116

Post by Moto7451 »

tptacek wrote: post #86
protomyth wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, it only airs on NPR around here and their site says "This American Life is produced by Chicago Public Radio and distributed by Public Radio International."

NPR and your local public radio station are two different things. Everyone acts like they aren't (I never say "I'm putting on WBEZ"; I say "I'm putting on NPR"), but in reality, your local public radio station is a separate entity that buys content from NPR and PRI. This is usually a distinction without a difference, but when it comes to evaluating the standards and practices of a particular show, it helps to know wh…

Its much akin to Syndication on TV but when you see a large Warner Brother's logo in front of a show on the CW, it's easier to distinguish.

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#117

Post by KVFinn »

rbarooah wrote: post #110
KVFinn wrote: post #104

My takeaway from the TAL email is that the conditions he describes are true the most part, with the exception of underage workers being common. This doesn't match the media coverage at all -- I suppose we'll all find out when they release the full episode. The impression I get from these parts: >"In our original broadcast, we fact checked all the things that Daisey said about Apple's operations in China," says Glass,…

What makes you think the conditions he describes are true?

I quoted the parts of the email that led me to that impression in the original post.

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#118

Post by jonhendry »

brudgers wrote: post #69
VMG wrote: post #13

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…

> "Daisey claims he met underage workers at Foxconn." 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 unde…

Chinese village governments are horribly corrupt. If a villager with a complaint against the local government goes to Beijing to get redress from the central government, the village often has goons and police who will abduct and imprison the villager for long periods, with all manner of maltreatment, including beatings.

The villagers might have been threatened, but it probably wasn't Apple who did it. The suppliers are probably lying to Apple about their environmental controls, then polluting to increase profits. So the supplier's owners or management, who might be important Party figures, or military officials, leans on the local officials, to lean on the villagers.

Re: This American Life Retracting "Mr. Daisey & The Apple Factory"

#119

Post by rbarooah »

KVFinn wrote: post #117
rbarooah wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think the conditions he describes are true?

I quoted the parts of the email that led me to that impression in the original post.

Daisey tells horrifying stories including one of a guy with a useless and twisted hand from making iPads.

Those create a very impression different from the one that we're left with. I'd say that for the most part what Daisey adds beyond the official reports is his fabrications.

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