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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"

#201

Post by [deleted] »

bitwize wrote: post #76
tptacek wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

For me it calls to mind Upton Sinclair. While working on Boston , Sinclair met with the lawyer of Sacco and Vanzetti, who told him they were guilty as sin and he the lawyer) fabricated an alibi for them. By the time the novel was finished, Sinclair was convinced the pair were guilty; but he released it anyway because of its "higher truth".

[deleted]

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

#202

Post by baconner »

jonhendry wrote: post #137
baconner wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

"It's not an anti-apple movement its a fair and humane electronics manufacturing labor movement." China's labor problems aren't limited to their electronics factories.

Fair point, but electronics has been the recent center of it. There's long been an overall fair labor movement no?

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

#203

Post by jonhendry »

baconner wrote: post #202
jonhendry wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's not an anti-apple movement its a fair and humane electronics manufacturing labor movement." China's labor problems aren't limited to their electronics factories.

Fair point, but electronics has been the recent center of it. There's long been an overall fair labor movement no?

Not sure how much that has reached into China. And industries like coal mining in China desperately need worker protections, but Western consumer purchases are unlikely to have any way to cause that.

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

#205

Post by timr »

beatle wrote: post #170
timr wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but...Daisey really isn't a journalist. He's a playwright and an author. He does one-man shows off Broadway. As far as I know, he's never had any training in journalism, nor has he worked as a reporter. 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),…

Wrong. Mike Daisey presented his lies AS FACTS to reputable news organizations. Here’s a transcript of his appearance on the Ed Schultz show on MSNBC: SCHULTZ: OK. What did you see? DAISEY: I saw all the things that everyone has been reporting on. I saw under-age workers. I talked to workers who were 13, 14, 15 years old. I met people whose hands have been destroyed from doing the same motion again and again on the l…

Wrong. Mike Daisey presented his lies AS FACTS to reputable news organizations.

I'm not wrong. I said that he's not a journalist, and that's true. He's a playwright.

Beyond that, and beyond what I heard him say on This American Life, I have no idea. The man could be a pathological liar. But he's not a journalist, and never pretended to be one.

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

#206

Post by sambeau »

yajoe wrote: post #63
jlarocco wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Marketplace purchased the story from another non-profit producer ( http://www.mylifeistrue.org/ ). They assumed the original journalists had done the basic due diligence, so blaming marketplace for failing the obvious background checks is a bit unfair. They took accountability for someone else's mistake.

Accountability for other people's mistakes is law in commerce.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson

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

#207

Post by batista »

gwright wrote: post #109
megaduck wrote: post #87

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…

And how would you compare the work in the factories to being a Chinese farm worker, for example? Why are millions choosing factories over farms? I think it is more important that there is a trend towards improved work environments and opportunities than bemoaning the fact that any particular work environment isn't as good as some cushy 1st-world white-collar job.

And how would you compare the work in the factories to being a Chinese farm worker, for example? Why are millions choosing factories over farms?

I hear this argument a lot, and I consider it BS. What their original work was has no bearing on whether the conditions in the factories are good or bad. It just tells us that they are better than the alternative.

Working as a human slave in 16 hours shifts for money barely enough to make it day-to-day is still preferable than dying of hunger in a chinese village because of lack of resources. That doesn't mean that it is good in itself, or that it should not change.

Doubly so if the chinese farms and village economies are broken down by pollution, regulations and measures taken to ensure the farm population is driven to work in factories.

You know, like the Stalin-era forced industrialization of USSR (which is not unknown in the West too: that's how most workers where forced to leave previously livable farm work and seek work in industry, starting from the 18th century Manchester (UK) case to the colonies. In most cases it was not a contemplated choice of what is most beneficial to the individual, but a forced decision).

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

#208

Post by batista »

CamperBob wrote: post #197
megaduck wrote: post #87

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…

My wife and I used to live in China, and we did traveling in both the high and the low places. What was your impression of working conditions on the rural farms that are one of the most often-cited alternatives for many of the Foxconn workers?

My impression is that you should not just a dire or unfair condition based on the existence of an even more dire or unfair condition.

If there is a famine in an area, and people are dying, is it OK to offer them food and water in exchange for slave labour? No pay, just food and water, and everybody that doesn't like can go and die of hunger. How does this deal sound?

A forced choice is not much of a choice.

Also check how the once substinent farm economy is affected by industrialization, pollution and the state push for ever more production.

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

#209

Post by leot »

Bud wrote: post #158
ceejayoz wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Posting is one thing. E-mailing every member is another.

They didn't merely post or email people. They are devoting THEIR ENTIRE SHOW this weekend to the retraction. If you honestly think Fox News would do this, I want some of your drugs.

You must have missed Fox's mea culpa during the 2008 election season. I believe it began: "Today on Fox we are devoting an entire hour to the retraction of our story regarding Candidate Barack Obama's attendance at an extremist muslim school."

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

#210

Post by Tycho »

cgoddard wrote: post #156
Jun8 wrote: post #26

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…

Keep in mind Apple has some of the highest profit margins in the tech industry too. It can afford to make conditions better, but chooses not to, given company awareness of the practices of its overseas suppliers.

But it doesn't own Foxconn. There's just as much reason for them to meddle in Foxconn's business as there is to meddle in any other point of the supply chain which they don't control (eg. the mining of the metals used in their products, the transportation of all raw materials, etc.).
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