121–130 of 240 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope you enjoyed your 5-min of fame Mike Daisey because your reputation is now completely and irrevocably ruined.
Oh "one more thing". There's Henry Blodget as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Blodget
exactly.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Take a bare PCB, screen print it with solder paste (sometimes glue), run it through a pick and place machine (or a series of machines) then put it through a reflow oven. Once it comes out the oven you give it an auto test, and send it to have the rest of the components put on. (Some things will be damaged by heat, or can't be placed by machine. Examples include connectors on the "wrong side", but I guess massive machines have solved this problem.)
Note that in a huge factory you'd need few people for all the steps until the product finishes testing - most of it is automatic.
Even in tiny factory one person can keep a line running producing a lot of product by pushing a few buttons now and then, and moving boards from one machine to the next.
Having said that, a lot of stuff is done by hand; tiny coil winding and placement is one example.
EDIT: Here's a UK documentary where youth went to a factory in the Philippines. The tech episode is ep5. I don't know if it's available online anywhere.
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,…
In the last case, his claim made it sound as if underage workers were more common than they are, if he could just show up at the gate and meet some. Underage workers have been found, but they don't seem to be as common as Daisey would have you believe, so not a routine policy of hiring kids.
Was this a stage play? If that's the case the "Reality Distortion Field"? is part of the schtick. If ThisAmLife crimped "facts" from it, it's their fault.
While reading Daisey's response[1], something jumped out at me: as a defense for "embellishing the truth" he says: "What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism." Why does that defense (from a disgraced journalist) sound familiar? Oh yeah, David Pogue, when faced with serious charges of conflict of interest: "I am not a reporter. I’ve been an opinion columnist my e…
This is a case where I suspect that both parties were mis-interpreting the intent of the other party; This American Life does a lot of "artistic" work (e.g. nearly everything by David Sedaris, or David Rakoff), and perhaps Daisey felt that he fit into that model. Likewise, TAL seems to have felt that Daisey was venturing into journalism, even though he's clearly an amateur at it (they make skeptical statements to this effect in the original piece).
That said, I think there's a bright-line distinction between "art" and "fabrication" -- when you present your work as a documentary without disclosing it as a work of fiction -- that Daisey seems to have crossed.
From a naive viewpoint: Why is all this reporting about factory conditions focus on Apple, i.e. Foxconn? Is there proof that factories operated by Foxconn are worse than the typical Chinese factory? Or is Apple pushing them to Draconian measures, e.g. guards with guns, child workers, etc.? How's this any different from any other Made in China electronics product? EDIT: The replies are aligned with what I was thinking…
(i) There is no evidence presented that Apple is doing something other companies are not doing.
(ii) The reasons for these working conditions are pretty well known: (1) China is still a relatively poor country (2) Electronics customers are very price conscious - you can't compete if your costs aren't low.
I think it's fine to pressure large companies to improve working conditions (even if it leads to higher prices) - but I have not seen the reason why Apple got almost all the scrutiny on this issue.
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…
Apple was a sponsor of NPR in FY 2008 and 2009, and 2010.
I suspect they continue to be one.
Money is the best explanation for the PR push behind your email.
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/annualreports/NPR_AnnualRe...
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/annualreports/2009_NPRAnnu...
http://www.npr.org/about/aboutnpr/annualreports/NPRSponsorsD...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
http://www.extremetech.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/ipad-3...
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…
