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…
Devoting an entire hour to detail the errors in the story is an amazing show of integrity. This only improves my regard for both This American Life and for Ira Glass.
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…
Your story would be a lot more valuable than Daisey's, which is worthless.
Marketplace is produced by American Public Media. http://www.marketplace.org/
Look, they're all part of the same Kenyan muslim communist atheist climate-change-imagining prius-driving organic-food-eating "fact and reality" based conspiracy.
A real news outlet determines the truth before, optionally, looking for or fabricating facts to support it.
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…
Thanks for pointing that out. And it still boggles my mind that Pogue has a job at th NYTimes.
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…
THIS. This is my biggest problem with this entire issue. It is ALWAYS reported as an Apple problem, when in reality (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 lo…
Because for the last few years, everyone is copying Apple. If you get them to change, you get the copycats to change as well. If on the other hand you get some generic brand shoelace manufacturer to change, no one, not even the protesters, notice, let alone follow suit.
With very few exceptions, everything from This American Life is worth listening to. I would still listen to this, as not everything he said was fabricated, but I wouldn't file away anything I heard as objective fact.
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…
I think it's telling that a reporter investigating reports of pollution and poor labor comditions was accused of working for Apple.