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This American Life Retracts Episode On Apple Factories In China
New submitter Hartree writes "This American Life aired an episode in January about visiting Foxconn's factory in Shenzhen China that supplies Apple with iPhones and iPads. It was the most downloaded of all of its episodes. That show helped prompt Apple to release, for the first time, a list of its suppliers and allow outside audits of working conditions at its suppliers. This American Life has now retracted the episode after finding out that Mike Daisey, whose visit to the factory the show was based on, fabricated portions of the story. This included a number of minor items, but also major ones such as his saying that he personally met underage workers and those poisoned by hexane exposure. To set the record straight, this weekend's episode of This American Life will present how they were mislead into airing a flawed story (PDF)."
...is how I read the headline...how appropriate
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
The past tense of "mislead" is "misled". They were misled.
It really is nice to see that someone has journalistic integrity in this day and age. Rather than ignoring their mistake or trying to hush it up, they're saying they messed up, this is what they did wrong, and this is how it happened.
When someone says, "Any fool can see
...as opposed to what we see in the media every day...(?)
http://www.teslamotors.com/teslavstopgear
Seriously, TV is full of examples of "reality" shows making things up to help sell through sensationalism. I'd be more surprised to find out, at this point, that ANY of that crap was accurate.
It's okay, This American Life. Slashdot has been lacking in fact checking, posting sensationalist stories, and using untrusted sources for years. You'll be fine, don't cry.
Wants me to believe that the story is true as originally aired and that this is some sort of PR clean-up strong-armed by Apple.
If that's not the case, good for NPR for admitting to and taking responsibility for their mistakes.
This kind of story, where they can go seriously meta about how they fact-check their stories and how they were misled, set to mournful music, is an almost perfect This American Life setup. They will probably want to goof like this every year now. OK, I'm being very snarky, but Ira Glass is just way too sincere for my taste.
One is World Class One is normal, and One is crap. Same as anywhere else except that the range seems broader.
All your database are belong to U.S.
Not only can I -- thanks to Senate Minority Whip Jon Kyl -- say anything I want by following it up with the "not a factual statement" disclaimer...
I can now slander companies AND get a cushy advertisement by NPR by saying "the tools of theater are not the same as the tools of journalism." Thanks, Mike Daisey!
No, I didn't put links. Google the names, lazy-folk!
Consistency is only a virtue if you're not a screw-up.
Ira Glass is a man of honour. Would we EVER see another news agency do this?
China bashing is all in vogue these days, since they are supposed to be the next superpower, which doesn't bode well with the current superpower that is the U.S. But realistically, neither side is pure evil, or for that matter, completely innocent. The Chinese are people like you and me, capable of things both good and bad.
Moral of the story: when deciphering all the spin in the media, truth is always somewhere in the middle.
It's important to note that the details that were false all involve Daisey personally witnessing events. He didn't, he just learned about them. So some of the specific examples are dramatizations, but all the basic facts of the horrendous working conditions are true. He just didn't personally talk with the effected workers.
So, yes, This American Life should clarify the story and should admit that they screwed up in claiming that a dramatization was pure fact. But they did, in fact, check out all the basic facts about the working conditions, and everything claimed is based on things that really happened.
Don't try and take this as evidence that the troubles at Foxconn were fabricated or that Apple was unfairly targeted based on fake stories. They were not.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
The page about the retracted episode on the site is not linking to the audio of the show like they do for every other episode.
However, the well-documented trick still works, so if you want to listen to it you can do so here.
I think the URL is supposed to be NPR's way of letting you know they're on to you.
You know, Foxconn does some shitty things with their employees. But it's stuff like this that takes all the legitimate complaints and paints it over with, "See, it's all a lie." I hope Mike Daisey gets a horrible rash on his balls for this snow job.
I8-D
I think you mean that FOX would launch a coordinated attack on Obama and the Democrats....regardless of who brought the truth to light. :)
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
"...workers who were poisoned on an iPhone assembly line by a chemical called n-hexane. Apple's audits of its suppliers show that an incident like this occurred in a factory in China, but the factory wasn’t located in Shenzhen, where Daisey visited. Apple's audits of its suppliers show that an incident like this occurred in a factory in China, but the factory wasn’t located in Shenzhen, where Daisey visited."
So the event happened - workers poisoned by n-hexane - he just didn't visit that factor and that's the big lie? Seriously.
Read the series of New York Times articles or are those fabricated too.
Yeah kill the messenger....
Daisey says, according to the press release. "My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it's not journalism. It's theater."
Sounds like the Arizona Sen. Jon Kyl excuse when he was caught in a bald faced lie on the floor of the Senate: his remark “was not intended to be a factual statement.” Just another bald faced liar who thinks lies are OK.
"My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it's not journalism. It's theater."
Daisey says *that* after he gets caught fabricating a story? Trying to portray blatant dishonesty as artistic license? Does he *actually not see the difference*?
In another context, physicist Richard Feynman issued a warning, "mother nature cannot be fooled." I can only assume that Daisey is in the other camp, where the truth just doesn't matter.
How did he even get this far?
Oddly enough I never heard of the original story or any of the fabricated details, yet news that it was a fake is all over the web. Apple fans too eager to believe that it may all be a hoax?
Yes, Apple fans, including the 206 hedge funds (and various other institutions, including even governments of some countries now) that own Apple stock. Considering that Apple now is bigger than the entire US retail sector, it can not be allowed to lose. Or at least not yet.
More like he admitted he took quite a bit of license in his retelling of events. I may be an Apple lover, but I'm a nerd first, and facts matter in the world of nerds, regardless of who they favor.
The monologue he engages in contains the following:
...and all these people have been exposed [to N-hexane]...Their hands shake uncontrollably. Most of them...can't even pick up a glass.
But then to quote from another interview with him in the last few days after he was confronted with his interpreter's contrary testimony:
Rob Schmitz: Cathy says you did not talk to workers who were poisoned with hexane.
Mike Daisey: That’s correct.
RS: So you lied about that? That wasn’t what you saw?
MD: I wouldn’t express it that way.
RS: How would you express it?
MD: I would say that I wanted to tell a story that captured the totality of my trip.
Ira Glass: Did you meet workers like that? Or did you just read about the issue?
MD: I met workers in, um, Hong Kong, going to Apple protests who had not been poisoned by hexane but had known people who had been, and it was a constant conversation among those workers.
IG: So you didn’t meet an actual worker who’d been poisoned by hexane.
MD: That’s correct.
Getting the facts out should be in every nerd's interest, regardless of who they favor. This guy is clearly a liar and is being slimy in all of his responses. He could've lied about any major manufacturer. I'm glad he's being discredited. Even he admits it wasn't the truth now:
My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had [my monologue] on your show as journalism. And it’s not journalism. It’s theater.
NPR (National Public Radio) doesn't have anything to do with the production or distribution of This American Life. It is produced independently by WBEZ and distributed by PRI (Public Radio International, a direct competitor to NPR)
"may be a hoax?"
There's no "may be." Dude made stuff up. He admits it. He did it because it makes great theatre!
It is produced by WBEZ (which itself broadcasts NPR distributed shows, such as Car Talk, but has to pay NPR for their broadcast), and distributed by PRI (Public Radio International, a direct competitor to NPR).
Jobs was awarded a Gulfstream by Apple for saving the company. “Given what he’s accomplished, we should give him five airplanes!”, Apple director Larry Ellison said at the time.
And I know plenty of middle class people who have fought their cities for building permits. Nice nitpick, though.
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
Are you so passionate about a cause (that involves other people than yourself) that you could see yourself do pretty much anything to win through or get your result?
If so then you should leave it to others and find other things to do.
It's been a while since we've seen a Foxconn story around here. No, I'm not being sarcastic. Since the focus is on Apple, the story died down, just waiting for a story like this to come along. Dead story == Workers not getting relief.
So can we finally start raking the numerous other companies that are using Foxconn over the coals already?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
The overall idea presented in the story, that you should care about what's going on in the new global economy, is correct. It seems that the stories he got from actually interviewing workers were not, in his mind, compelling enough to move people to action. Most of the real stories are things that happen here: people working overtime, people who are underpaid, repetitive stress injury, worker accidents and the like.
So he made up some plausable sounding stories to make his point. It's not false in spirit, but he had to present it as literal truth for people to take it seriously. And the reality is that most of the news we read has been similarly embellished. The same way most pictures of models have been photoshopped.
So the real problem is that most people, when presented with objective facts and figures, are not able to put that information in context and connect it to the underlying human story.
The program forgot to mention that each iPad and iPhone is dipped in blood extracted from Chinese infants then wiped clean with the spittle from Foxconn executives before shipment.
Besides that, the program was totally accurate in all respects.
Nah, it's probably conservatives who love bashing NPR.
I'd like to hear from the hundreds of slack journalists that passed on the original story as truth. I know that things are not great in many countries, cheap labor is the reason that they build stuff there and not anywhere else, maybe they should look at some of the sweat shops in the US and other countries too.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Now... who paid.?
Help stamp out iliturcy.
YES!!!!
Word game?
Tonight's episode of This American Life is brought to you buy Apple...
Previewing comments are for sissies!
first class, top notch
Fox News: "The number of factories Daisey visited in China was listed incorrectly, for example, as well as the number of workers he spoke with"
.. that he met underage workers at Foxconn, and that a man with a mangled hand was injured at Foxconn making iPads (and that Daisey's iPad was the first one he ever saw in operation)"
Ira Glass: "Daisey admits to fabricating these characters
AccountKiller
This is obviously a well-funded coverup by Apple to save their own reputation and allow them to continue exploiting child slave labor.
The TAL pieces on the economy are produced by NPR's Planet Money team, which also produce their own short biweekly podcasts and occasionally write for various magazines as well.
If you liked those TAL pieces, definitely give Planet Money a shot.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Martians invading New Jersey is great theater. Pretending to be a journalist uncovering secrets of Foxconn is just lying. Orson Welles did not go for months letting people believe it was all true, but Mike Daisey did nothing to correct people when they believed his work of fiction. Maybe some of what he saw was true but now ALL of his story is subject to doubt. Truthiness is not the same as truth.
To set the record straight, this weekend's episode of This American Life will present how they were mislead into airing a flawed story (PDF).
So they are going to boast about their dishonest work. They don't need an entire show to admit they've been taken in by a fabrication. They're just milking it for further publicity. I would expect to hear the phrase "fake but accurate" used by them to describe the show.
They're shameless frauds.
Fox news did show that news shows are not legally obligated to tell the truth http://www.foxbghsuit.com/. News team showed that Canada and other countries ban Bovine Growth Hormone. Monsanto didn't like that and pressured Fox to keep changing the story before release to the point the new story would have been a lie. Finally the news team quit and filed a whistleblower lawsuit. The whistleblower lawsuit was thrown out because Fox news was not guilty of breaking the law as the FCC has no rules requiring news to be the truth.
This is the danger of "fake but accurate", but kudos to them for setting the record straight as prominently as they set it crooked.
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
Everything could be fake for the purpose of propaganda, getting truth out of Chinese mouth is harder than you think. Whatever Chinese says it would be better take it with a grain of salt.
I was suspicious of Daisey's story when I heard it on This American Life (which is not NPR, but American Public Media, btw), as I'd seen earlier coverage on Financial Times with video http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2012/03/odm-opportunity-is-in-wind_04.html The video looks pretty fair, and it was nothing like the textile factories and other really tough places to work in China. The work is boring, but people do it to save money to buy a house and then go home after a couple of years.
Gently reply
I seem to know more liberals who watch Fox News the conservatives. The conservatives I know by and large think it is crap and ignore it. The liberals seem to think they need to watch it to see what "the other guy is up to" and the like. They get worked up, like yelling at the screen mad, over it, but watch anyhow.
I've tried to explain that Fox loves that. They do not care who you are, they care that you watch. Doesn't matter why you watch, if their bullshit gets views, they'll keep it up. So if a bunch of those viewers are liberals who hate it, well guess what? You help it all the same. Viewership it what matters to them.
Personally I just ignore Fox News. I think it is crap and I wish they would go out of business. Best way to make that happen is to ignore them and never watch.
There are more stories like this out there. The "e-Waste Hoax" of Africa allowed dictators for years to seize working and repairable computers (the only ones Africans could afford), and created a crackdown with actual arrests. The UN spent two years trying to find out just how bad it was... and found out it wasn't bad at all. The imports were 85% reused, and 80% of the junk at African dumps was used for a decade before being finally tossed out by African consumers themselves. http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/11000554-ewaste-recycling-hoax-ngo-basel-action-network-profits-from-racist-images Unfortunately, African geeks and techs don't have the pull to get major media to rewrite / retell / retract the story.
Gently reply
People use it when someone calls BS on what they do. Micheal Moore has done the same thing. His movies are very much presented as documentaries, however they contain fabricated scenes, exaggerations, misleading edits, and so on. When confronted about this he says "Well they are meant to be entertainment." A convenient cop out because of course entertainment has no obligation, or expectation of being factual (surely nobody ACTUALLY thinks Start Trek is real...). So anything can be deflected with "It was just entertainment."
Same shit here, and in many other cases. Guy wants to present his story as The Truth(tm). When someone discovers it isn't he doesn't try and defend it as such because he can't. Instead he just claims "Oh well it is entertainment," and parrots that to deflect criticism.
Annoys me, but it is unfortunately a common tactic.
If the truth REALLY is so bad, why the need for lies? Any time someone lies or exaggerates or whatever and then says "Well ya but they are still really bad!" makes me wonder why they did it in the first place. If it is really that bad, is there a need to invent shit? People don't seem the need to invent shit about, say, the Nazi's in WW2 or the NKVD or the like because the reality is extremely bad. No need to try and dress it up to look worse.
When people do try and invent shit to make something look worse I have to ask why. Is it because maybe you are discovering it isn't as bad as you thought it was, but still feel the need to try and justify your preconceived notion.
At the very bottom of the story on the retraction, there is a link to a sourced New York Times story, which is nearly as damning as the retracted one. This is called "burying the lede," and it is biased reporting.
Reportedly, the TAL correction also confirmed most of what Daisey claimed; he wasn't there, but the stories turn out to be true after all. The TAL broadcast will be available for download on Sunday
Here's the link to the NYT story:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html
This is were the TAL correction will be available:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction
Presumably because you have been hiding under a rock.... or more charitably heard the news stories about Apple and Foxconn that where generated AFTER the American Life story pushed this issues into every bodies fore brain.
This WAS a big story. And it WAS hyper-inflated at the time.
That's why the courts want people to say when they testify:
1. Truth. Of course, don't tell lies.
2. Whole truth. Need entire story, not just part of it (some items may be very important).
3. Nothing but the truth. Don't mix truths with lies, otherwise the whole story gets contaminated.
IANAL so don't use above for your activities in a court of law, unless you are insane like those using slashdot poll numbers to do anything important.
mfwright@batnet.com
facts matter in the world of nerds, regardless of who they favor.
Which facts, though? The facts about Apple's manufacturers or the facts about Daisey? I think the story about how the employees are mistreated is a more interesting and important story than Daisey sensationalizing that mistreatment.
Your choice of facts does not speak well of you.
It has to be as true as the journalist can depict it. Anything short of one's ability and ethics is essentially a lie.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction
I can understand why the professional reporters are horrified. But I keep remembering something a poet once said:
The case was defended on the squarest, most idealistic, and most foolish level imaginable, and on the other side the dirt was so filthy that the defense refused to believe it existed, or, as in my case and probably in others, actually believed it.--Kenneth Rexroth, An Autobiographical Novel, p. 199.
Which is more important: the working conditions of thousands or their sensationalization by one man?
Actually, I'd argue that Martians invading New Jersey would be a public service but that's another issue altogether.
The lies about Apple's manufacturers or the facts about Daisey? I think the lies about how the employees are mistreated are more interesting and important than Daisey lying about that mistreatment.
FTFY.
This guy is clearly a liar and is being slimy in all of his responses... Even he admits it wasn't the truth now:
Did you read your own quote?
MD: I met workers in, um, Hong Kong, going to Apple protests who had not been poisoned by hexane but had known people who had been, and it was a constant conversation among those workers.
His presentation was wrong in a lot of ways, but none of the problems that he's raised were unfactual. The main problem with how he did this is that he's provided an excuse for people to dismiss the issues that he's raised. That's shameful, but it's important not to dismiss the message for the messenger.
> Apple presents itself as a "think different", hip, cool, enlightened company,
> much more so than any other consumer electronics brand. So this kind of
> thing contrasts with their public image much more strongly than any other
> consumer electronics company.
"Someone with a better haircut than me likes their smartphone, which obviously needs to be punished, so I want to rub it in their faces that their phone is made by Chinese workers under poor conditions and hope they don't notice that my phone and all my other consumer electronics are made in the same or worse conditions."
I agree that it may be representative of some facts, but he's proven himself to be untrustworthy as a source for information, so even if his claims may be representative of reality, the fact that they are fabricated and untrue means that they should be wholly disregarded in favor of other sources. For instance:
1) He claimed there were armed guards.
-- Refuted
2) He claimed he met a man who had his hand smashed in a machine.
-- Refuted
3) He claimed he showed that man an iPad turned on for the very first time.
-- Refuted
4) He claimed he directly met and talked to people who had been poisoned by N-hexane and that he saw its effects.
-- Refuted
5) He claimed he met underage workers coming out of the factory.
-- Refuted
The man is clearly a liar, and we have no reason to believe that any of his subsequent claims, such as receiving secondhand information from people in Hong Kong, are true either. His claims were fabricated, and for personal benefit at that.
Although, as you pointed out, just because the messenger is a liar does not mean the message is incorrect, in much the same way that a math student showing incorrect work may still come up with the right answer. As you said though, some of his claims have been borne out as representative of reality, even though his specific claims were lies. Apple's own audits have revealed underage workers. Similarly, they've found that some of their suppliers had employees who were poisoned by N-hexane, though not to the extent that this guy is talking about.
Even so, that some of his claims may be representative of reality does not excuse him any more than we would excuse someone who falsely accused a person who they believed to be a criminal of having committed a crime that they did not commit.
Here's what I don't get reading the comments on this story: It seems like a lot of intelligent & otherwise thoughtful people actually trust the bigmedia to report 'facts'. I don't mean trust them to report on the happenings of the day, as filtered thru the experiences, unconscious biases, and overt political agendas of human reporters. Rather, trust them to report some ideal unbiased and perfectly accurate representation of unquestionable Facts.
Seriously dude, didn't yo momma tell you not to believe everything you read / hear / see on teevee?
Sort of like AGW.
But having listened to the episode, I think This American Life did a very good job with their retraction.
Foremost, they took blame for letting it on the air when one big red flag should have stopped them (my translator's name is actually Anna, and I can't reach her anymore).
Second, they presented the facts that the translator said didn't happen and the Marketplace reporter said were extremely unlikely to happen, but they never said outright "these are lies". They said "we no longer believe him and we are fully retracting our most popular episode, but you can draw your own conclusions".
Third, they interviewed Mr. Daisey and his long pauses, nervous voice, and double-speak make me feel very sure that whatever definition of truth he uses doesn't match my definition of truth. All the personality of the big problems he found (workers with hands shaking so bad they couldn't hold a glass, 13year olds speaking English, workers at gunpoint, claw-hand man saying the iPad is magic) is bullshit. And since it wasa his examples that humanized the story for me, that is why I am so pissed at Mr. Daisey.
Last and most importantly though, This American Life did not let Apple off the hook due to this mini-scandal. This modern Upton Sinclair was muckraking about problems he didn't actually find, but it has drawn legitimate attention to the problems which others (including Apple) say arer there. The last segment in the show is talking with a NYTimes reporter about what we know about Apple's China Labor abuses; there are clearly still reasons to be concerned. This American Life doesn't retract and apologize so profusely that they undermine the observation that Chinese labor is a concern. They responsibly say that we thought we had someone who could humanize what these labor abuses are like, and we were wrong. This is a real problem though, just not one in our domain of humanizing illustrative stories.
Hell, even Woz himself has now said that he appreciates Mike Daisey for opening his own eyes to the abuses even though they are fiction. The retraction episode of this American Life is definitely worth a listen for an example of a classy way to retract your sources without undermining the focus on the real problem (e.g. Dan Rather's memo over George Bush's "military" service record).
I'm assuming it's pretty easy to argue that these lies lost Apple a buttload of money and that somebody will be sued?
I'm not surprised there was lies - I was highly suspicious when this came out because there is no way a company like Foxconn could employ underage employees. I've done enough work in China to know there are ways you can screw your employees, and there are things you just can't get away with - more so if you are someone like Foxconn.
The hexane thing was also suspicious, but from the start the entire thing stinks. The people working at Foxconn or even just those who are ambitious know that if they make up a good story and it gets into the western press they can get a fat pay day out of it somehow, and the bullshit just gets thicker and thicker the more people go on about it.
His presentation was wrong in a lot of ways, but none of the problems that he's raised were unfactual. The main problem with how he did this is that he's provided an excuse for people to dismiss the issues that he's raised. That's shameful, but it's important not to dismiss the message for the messenger.
Excuse me, but... First he claimed that he talked to people who was poisoned. That was proven to be a lie. Now he makes a different claim. There is not the slightest evidence that what he says is the truth this time, and coming from a proven liar I think the correct assumption is that he is lying again, until there is independent evidence that he isn't lying. But then his new claims is that people in Hongkong knew people who were poisoned. That kind of statement is usually called "hearsay" and doesn't count as evidence.
So what message exactly is there left that shouldn't be dismissed, beyond what can be found at what is at the moment the most trustworthy source - Apple's "Supplier Responsibility" report.
I do applaud TAL for at least attempting a "Retraction," but has anyone listened to it yet? The episode spends most of its time trying (perhaps fairly) to make Mike Daisey squirm, and then concludes with what was essentially Daisey's own dangerous "fake but accurate" defense as mentioned above. The story concludes by trying to say that although their judgement was shoddy, "all" these "things" were actually happening at "Apple" plants. Really? I thought the claim of guards with guns was definitively rebuked? I thought the man with the "claw arm" never worked at a FoxConn plant? Although I respect TAL's attempt at a retraction, any episode so-labeled should have accepted responsibility and left it at that. I think they would have been far better off retracting the lie in this episode, and then choosing to do their own investigative piece about factory electronic working conditions in China at a later separate time. The NYT pieces, albeit negative, were nothing like Daisey's fictionalized accounts, and it is incorrect to summarize them as confirming his stories.
So what message exactly is there left that shouldn't be dismissed
All of it, the only fabricated parts were his own experiences. Yes, it's true that he falsely claimed to talk to people who were poisoned. But people were poisoned, even if he didn't talk to them himself.
Borrowing from another poster, here's the NYT article covering basically all the same stuff. They talk about n-hexane on page five:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/26/business/ieconomy-apples-ipad-and-the-human-costs-for-workers-in-china.html?_r=1
Occam's razor: Apple managed to bully a lot of Chinese nationals into towing their corporate line, force NPR to retract its story and get Daisy to say it was all just theater OR Daisy's just another self-aggrandizing little shit who's trying to surf the Apple wave to success ? Second one seems simpler to me.
Commenter clearly has no clue what Occam's Razor is. The guy admits to fabrication and the source backs that up. Occam's Razor says this is the story, not something you invent to fit some motivation that you invent to fit a story. That's just the commenter making stuff up and trying to justify it with gibberish references.
Even the respected NPR will air episodes, without first checking the facts, as long as the storyline makes China/Chinese/Chinese owned companies into Bogeyman
I guess NPR is anti Chinese, after all
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
One example of a "red flag" they should have spotted is that he described the symptoms of hexane poisoning poorly. There is a huge difference between the phrase: "I have personally met..." and the phrase: "I have talked to many people who claim to know...." Having said that, I thought the retraction was appropriate.