I'm just happy to see they're talking about something other than one of their contributor's childhood memories.

Seriously, they're worse than "A Prairie Home Companion". At least that show embraces their schmaltziness, and doesn't try to pretend it's ironic.

The only thing that TAL and Glass have accomplished is to make me distrust every other story they have produced.

Their faux-sanctimony is disgusting.

@2

Exactly.

A *full episode* of TAL dissecting in excruciating detail about where, precisely, in the story Daisey used his literary license to achieve the intended audience effect of getting people to, ya know, like, *care* about the consequences of our overconsumption habits?? I have no doubt that David Sedaris' Santa Elf story doesn't check out either. I'm sure he used some literary license there too. Let's interview some of those elves. I bet they don't remember certain conversations either. Why isn't *that* story being followed up by Ira? Gee, maybe it's because lots of money is on the line at Apple & profit margins are being affected. We can't have our greedy consumers buying *less* can we? What about the stockholders??

If you are dumb enough to believe that Apple isn't behind this dramatic, overdone, and drawn-out confession of Mike Daisey, then I have a real nice jalopy I'd like to sell you.

I used to respect Ira Glass. No longer. Now I can see he's willing to be bought and sold by a rich, powerful corporation. Fuck you, TAL. Your program has lost *my* respect and trust due to this reason alone.

@2, if you truly believe that you might like reading David Carr's take.

No one is suggesting that everything about Apple’s supply chain is suddenly hunky-dory, but the heroic narrative of a fearless theater artist taking on the biggest company in the world is now a pile of smoking rubble.
[...]
There is nothing in the journalism playbook to prevent a determined liar from getting one over now and again. It is partly because seekers of truth expect the same from others. On the broadcast this weekend, Mr. Glass seemed stunned by Mr. Daisey’s ability to look him in the eye and dissemble.
“I have such a weird mix of feelings about this because I simultaneously feel terrible for you, and also I feel lied to,” Mr. Glass said. “And also, I stuck my neck out for you.”
I sent an e-mail to someone I know who is an expert on journalistic malfeasance to ask if, in a complicated informational age, there was a way to make sure that someone telling an important story had the actual goods.
“All the good editing, fact-checking and plagiarism-detection software in the world is not going to change the fact that anyone is, under the right circumstances, capable of anything and that journalism is essentially built on trust.”
I think Jayson Blair, who responded to my e-mail query, may be on to something.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/19/busine…

Jonathan, you have obviously never been to China. I met families there, some working 20 hour days because they had no idea when the regime would put a stop to "capitalism" and they would lose all possibility of making money. Or for that matter, you've probably never worked at Boeing either. Forced overtime is a way of life when airplane orders are flowing.

The question really shouldn't be about provenance. It should be about truth. Daisey at least heard of a lot of bad things from people close to the plants. Was any of it true? Apple is a highly profitable monopoly thanks to US patent law. (Slide your finger from left to right to unlock = a patent??) If on top of that egregious level of patent and quite classical economic injustice (by definition) they also exploit foreign labor to boost their profits even more, then should be napalmed, not apologized to.

Working more than 40 hours a week isn't as uncommon as you would think. I worked at the Boeing factory in Everett for a number of years, including some years when they were ramping up production during a boom period. We were required to work mandatory overtime, anywhere from 50-60 hours a week. We could not decline the overtime, or we would be fired on the spot. Sure, we bitched and moaned sometimes, but the overtime pay was great. And we knew that eventually the production would slow back down again, and all that overtime pay would dry up, so none of us complained too much.

So, no, working long hours is NOT necessarily bad. Nor is it limited to Chinese sweat shops.

@3: I don't think Sedaris's Santaland Diaries were ever promoted as a piece of journalism.

@7

But how much is the overtime pay in the Chinese factories?

I have conflicted feelings about this, because Daisey clearly not only mixed firsthand experiences and reliably reported thirdhand accounts he'd read to create a compelling narrative that for dramatic purposes he told in the first person: he also lied about having done so, not only within the narrative where it might have been necessary but also to his editor and to people assigned to fact-check him. That's just not cool. And some aspects of his story (notably armed guards at the factory) may not be substantiated either by his experiences or by published accounts he read. So he did bring the furious response on his own head.

On the other hand, basically everything Daisey said about conditions and practices at Foxconn is the gospel truth, even if his narrative of how he learned it is not. It's a travesty that the defenestration of Daisey is being treated as an exoneration of Apple - doubly so when actual Apple press releases are used to this purpose.

And as noted upthread, frequent contributor David Sedaris is given complete license to use invented, contrived, and borrowed elements to his memoir-style stories at This American Life for dramatic effect: Glass et al can hardly act as if they're unfamiliar with the concept, even if Sedaris might have been more upfront with them about his methods than Daisey was.

Any comedian exaggerates - to compare Daisey and Sedaris is ludicrous.

@10 I agree with your point about Apple not being exonerated by this, but does David Sedaris present his work as fact? I agree with Ira Glass that Mike Daisey's monologue is presented as fact, and even if you don't accept that you have to accept that when he allows it to be presented on TAL he is presenting it is the truth.

I imagine Daisey has benefitted a lot from first being on TAL--lots of television appearances, increased ticket sales etc. I don't feel sorry for him when he can't use the word "lie" to describe what he did on TAL.

Then again, it is well known that the translators like the one in China are generally spying for the government, and with powerful forces like the Chinese gov't, Apple (and their brand) and Chinese commerce in general involved I would really like to know the back story to this back story.

60 hours? is that all?

Plus they actually got paid for the time past 40 hours?

Sounds like things are better in china than here.

People are worried about Daisey's play not being completely derived from first hand account? I can hardly wait for people to throw out Ionescu for the rhinoceros, Melville for the whaling info, or Harriet Beecher Stowe......

Oh brother, this is a corporate hack job and it's so much easier to kill the messenger than fix inexpensive and profitable manufacturing. There is just too much money in it.

By the way, does Apple contribute to NPR or TAL? I haven't checked.

Jonathan, it would have been more honest of you to also quote from the end of the transcript, where Glass asks Duhigg whether we should feel badly about buying Apple products, and Duhigg presents the best argument for why we should. This doesn't fit with your argument that Ira Glass is a corporate shill, obviously, which I can only suspect is why you didn't include it. This selective quoting does not do you honor, Jonathan.

Also, Mike Daisey is a liar who a) has done a real disservice to the cause he cares so much about and b) mooches off the labor of journalists who actually gathered the information he presented as his own experience. Fuck him.

Here's that portion of the transcript:

Ira Glass: But to get to the normative question that's kind of underlying all the reporting and all the discussion of this, the thing that we all want to know when we hear this is like, "Wait, should I feel bad about this?" As somebody who owns these products, should I feel bad? And I don't know that I feel so bad when, when I hear this.

Charles Duhigg: So it's not my job to tell you whether you should feel bad or not, right? I'm a reporter for the New York Times, my job is to find facts and essentially let you make a decision on your own. Let me, let me pose the argument that people have posed to me about why you should feel bad, and you can make of it what you will. And that argument is there were times in this nation when we had harsh working conditions as part of our economic development. We decided as a nation that that was unacceptable. We passed laws in order to prevent those harsh working conditions from ever being inflicted on American workers again. And what has happened today is that rather than exporting that standard of life, which is within our capacity to do, we have exported harsh working conditions to another nation. So should you feel bad that someone is working 12 to 24 hours a day in order to produce the iPhone that you're carrying in your pocket—

Ira Glass: Well, now like, when you say it like that, suddenly I feel bad again, but okay, yeah. [laughter]

Charles Duhigg: I don't know whether you should feel bad, right? I mean—

Ira Glass: But, but finish your thought.

Charles Duhigg: Should you feel bad about that? I don't know, that's for you to judge, but I think the the way to pose that question is… do you feel comfortable knowing that iPhones and iPads and, and other products could be manufactured in less harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions and perpetuate because of an economy that you are—

Ira Glass: Right.

Charles Duhigg: —supporting with your dollars.

Ira Glass: Right. I am the direct beneficiary of those harsh conditions.

Charles Duhigg: You're not only the direct beneficiary; you are actually one of the reasons why it exists. If you made different choices, if you demanded different
conditions, if you demanded that other people enjoy the same work protections that you yourself enjoy, then, then those conditions would be different overseas.

Ira Glass: Charles Duhigg. You can find the series he did with David Barboza about Apple in China at the New York Times website. It’s called “The iEconomy.”

Truthiness is unethical, whether it's coming from the left or the right, the mega-corp or the muckraker.

One should be clear about what is fact and what is fiction, obviously to the best of one's ability. If you are taking creative license, then you should say so, especially when being fact-checked.

Also, as for adverse conditions, Paul Krugman (that corporate shill) had this to say back in ye ole 90s: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/t…

Make of it what you will.

So in response to someone who lied about a few facts but clearly illustrated a problem with another we should just start to grow to accept that there are people in this world who are going to feel compelled to work over 60 hours a week for a company that would work them to death and not give a fuck? If this is what it means to be a liberal I don't want to live on this planet anymore.

1. Sounds like plenty of American factories to me.

2. I think you are missing the point. The problem is that this asshole's massive BS job is going to overshadow the actual human rights and labor issues. He has defiled the very crusade he has undertaken. Those who would brush Apple's evils under the rug now have all the ammo they need. THERE ARE VERY REAL CONSEQUENCES TO LYING.

Apple treats them better than their own government.

What Mike Daisey did on TAL is the journalistic equivalent of a scientist falsifying data. If I found out that one of my colleagues falsified data -- even in support of something I feel strongly about -- that would be the end of my dealings with them. And if I had stuck my neck out to support them or actually included their data in my work, then homicidal would barely describe my feelings.

As the great email scandals over climate change demonstrate, any whiff of falsification can undo years or decades of rock solid research. The greatest damage the Daisey episode can do is not to him or TAL, but to call into suspicion all of the tons of other good journalism that has been done on working conditions in China.

Finally, to compare what Daisey did on TAL (and in dozens of news appearances thereafter) to David fucking Sedaris is fucking ludicrous. Seriously?

I have worked as an engineer in Malaysia. I have seen first hand workers who refused overtime being punished by only being allowed to work 40 or even less than 40 hours per week. The pay is so low in these jobs that if you only work 40 hours a week you don't make enough to buy food and pay rent. Until we demand similar working conditions to us standards world wide we will be at a competitive disadvantage, that said, the comment in the episode about how proximity of the supply chain is dead on. As an engineer at a forbes 500 company I have watched as we have eliminated any supplier outside of a 100 mile radius of our main factory, us companies have no chance of getting our business at this point.

@3 The piece only makes it worse.
"Mr. Glass said. 'And also, I stuck my neck out for you.'"
Yeah, it must be unfortunate for TAL to simultaneously distribute their highest-rated show ever and then burnish their reputation for 'truthiness' and 'integrity' at the expense of that show's creator.
If TAL presented the material as factual, that is entirely their fault. They had a storyteller on their show to tell a story, a show that not even their fawning reporter ever thought "was literally true."

@15 Exactly.

I'm glad someone actually listened to the whole episode. Thanks for posting that part of the transcript.

Also, I don't think mandatory 60 work weeks are OK just because Boeing workers have to put up with them too. We need an economic system in which everyone's basic needs are guaranteed so that this kind of bullshit isn't able to be forced upon workers.

On the other hand, basically everything Daisey said about conditions and practices at Foxconn is the gospel truth (@10)

No, it's not. Foxconn doesn't use that much underage labor (they do have underage workers, but to the extent that Daisey says). The hexane poisoning happened in another city entirely. The guards don't have guns (most cops don't even carry guns in China). Most underground labor rights activists are not clueless children, they're people with legal knowledge and organizing expertise.

Mike Daisey's lies aren't gospel truth about the situation. They're lies. He could have just told the truth and it would have been a compelling story. But he didn't.

@24 dirge

I don't see how you can listen to the Retraction show or read the transcript and say TAL is "entirely" at fault, after this part (from the transcript):

Ira Glass: ...and he writes “Being that news stations are obviously a different kind of form than the theater we wanted to make sure that this thing is totally, utterly unassailable by anyone who might hear it.”

And then you wrote back to him, you said, “I totally get that. I want you to know that makes sense to me. A show built orally for the theater is different than what typically happens from news stations. I appreciate you taking the time to go over this.” And so you, like, you understood that we wanted it to be completely accurate in the most traditional sense.

Mike Daisey: Yes, I did.

Since when is a performance piece used as a source for anything? Fuck that cockbreath, Ira Glass.

@30, I get that you like to be obnoxious and rude, so your comments come across thusly, but could you answer a question for me? I was just discussing this with my good friend this weekend and have long wondered about this: why is cocksucking an insult? You said “cockbreath,” which suggests cocksucking and “cocksucker” is a common insult against homosexuals. So perhaps you are a good person to consult.

The suggestion is that a homosexual is no better than a woman who likes to suck cock. My experience is that straight men generally enjoy having their dicks sucked on, though not every sex partner will perform fellatio for/on him. So when a straight man happens to find a sex partner who will/wants to suck him off, wouldn’t he then feel a little gratitude towards her? Isn’t cocksucking a valued quality?

So why do people like you use it as an insult? Do you feel that your cock is disgusting and so anyone who would put it in her mouth is also disgusting? Do you resent your dick and can’t imagine anyone else deriving pleasure from it? Do you feel that any woman or man who would accept your disgusting dick into her or his body is vile and worthy of your scorn? And anyone else who doesn’t feel derision and scorn and guilt because of sex is an anomaly? Do you feel so poorly about yourself that you want to make sure others feel scorned and icky about sex?

I would like to hear your thoughts on this.

The hating on TAL is ridiculous, as is the claim that they are not a journalistic endeavor. Clearly, some stories are just stories, and they are always clear about that. But, am I the only one to remember that TAL actually won a Peabody? You know, the prestigious journalism award Bill O'Reilly claimed to win but didn't?

Jesus fucking Christ, sloggers. You shouldn't need this spelled out for you, but here goes:

Either it was a "story" like David Sedaris, or it was a journalistic expose. If it was a "story," then guess what? It says nothing about Apple and the way they do their business, and you don't get to use it as fuel for your outrage against Apple.

If it was an attempt at journalism, then yes, it's a giant fucking problem that it contained outright lies.

Either way, there is NO reason to suspect a conspiracy when TAL runs a redaction. If it was just a nice, Sedaris-style piece of entertainment, then what harm does a redaction do? You still get a good story, which (according to you) is the whole point. If it's a journalistic piece, then of course they have to print a redaction when they find out it contained falsehoods! You don't just suddenly approve of reporting lies as facts when the lies happen to be in favor of YOUR cause (what is this, fucking Fox news?). Supporters of any cause should be pissed at the person who discredits their cause with lies, not at the people who find these lies and correct them.

And you can't have both: you can't claim that this was only meant as an entertaining story that shouldn't have to be accurate, but then claim that it was redacted because the MAN over at APPLE just, like, couldn't handle how Daisey spoke TRUTH to POWER!

Those two things cannot be true at the same time.

There are plenty of reliable stories about Apple being exploitative. Rely on THOSE for your outrage; you don't have to include lies about them as well. Here's an analogy: I hate Rick Santorum for his anti-gay, pro-war, classist politics, and that's plenty. I don't have to make up lies about him personally punching gays and paupers in the mouth, and it would be wrong (not to mention downright stupid) to do so.

Comparing the Daisey piece to the Sedaris pieces is, like many have pointed out, absolutely fucking stupid. Do you guys also get confused when Disney can show fairy tales but the lady on the news has to talk about things that really happened?

Glad to see The Stranger is on the side of the Billionaires who make up the majority of the Chinese Government.

34: No, we're just accurate in our reasons to oppose the actions of China and Apple. We're not swallowing every single fairy tale whose conclusion we happen to agree with.

"China is corrupt" is not the same statement as "Every single bad thing ever uttered about China is true."

Agrees wholeheartedly with 33

(Replace "redaction" with "retraction" in #33. "Redaction" doesn't make sense and I don't know what I was thinking).

@31: In this specific case, one could argue that all the comment is decrying is substandard oral hygiene.

Had Glass and TAL done any less than a full hour of retraction and correction, they'd no doubt be accused of burying it on p. 28.

When a journalistic enterprise can screws up, they need to apologize to the audience, correct the record, show how it happened, restate the standards, and tell how they intend to do better next time. Based on my listen, TAL could do a little better on that last bit, but they mostly did OK.

I admit that I was sucked into the vortex of This American Life for close to a decade, and found the who thing just so smartly constructed and executed that I even gave money to support the endeavor so I could continue to listen with that smug and self-congratulatory smile that all of us NPR listeners demonstrate when we're not furrowing our brows in the absolute sincerest expressions of concern at the state of our world. And even when satires like The Onion's article on This American Life skewered its pretentions (and pretentiousness) I chuckled knowingly and allowed myself to smile even more smugly, having demonstrated that most hipster of ideals, the ability to both enjoy something and to ironically appreciate criticism of that very thing.

No longer. After suffering through this most recent hour of self-indulgent and passive aggressive angst, I just can't take it anymore. The entire episode is insufferable, from Glass's mock outrage at being lied to (LIED TO!) to his absurd attempt to take full responsibility while simultaneously shaming Daisey into accepting the blame, to his ridiculous hand-wringing over whether or not he should feel bad about the harsh working conditions in China, as if helping people figure out what they should or should not feel bad about is even a valid goal for a news show. But the truth is that helping people figure out what they should feel bad about is EXACTLY what This American Life exists for. I don't know how I missed it all this time, but it really is like a Sunday sermon for over-educated liberals. "Here's an injustice, or tragic aspect of the human condition that you haven't been caring enough about lately, now repent for your insensitivity, and keep your eye out for the collection basket!" At last, the curtain has been pulled back and the sanctimony that undergirds every episode of this impeccably curated but remarkably one-note program is simply too much for me to bear.

There are some very good episodes. But I really think that if I never hear those adenoidal strains of self-righteousness again, mine will be a blessed life.

Interesting that people here are more concerned about over worked underpaid chinese workers than overworked underpaid workers here.