[This American Life] Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

ah yes, "fake but accurate", the Dan Rather defense

 

NPR did a good job of exposing what was made up in the story. I saw about this before, but heard NPR's exposing of Daisey just yesterday.

 

Ahh yes, the “partially fake, so completely untruthful” offense. The reason that these stories need to be retracted due to journalistic integrity. What makes them so wrong is that they are presented as complete truth when they are really a mix. I have listened to the follow-up.

According to the retraction piece, Mike Daisey wanted to make a monologue that made people care. He succeeded in his goal, but he went about it in the wrong manner. He should not have lied and had the piece presented as journalism. Neither should have TAM presented the story as fact without following their own rules of reporting. There is a danger if you continue to believe every exact detail about the embellished story, but there is a countervailing danger of putting into disbelief the base issue. I believe that the the implied criticisms of the piece are still valid as they existed before the piece was created and will continue to exist after the retraction. I also think that it is unfortunate that the piece was released and presented by the author as a non-fiction account, because it gives ammo for people like you to say, there is nothing to see here, you should move on. For some of the people who were first brought in to think about these issues because of Mike Daisey's piece, they will easily be swayed to think that they should not care about what is going on because it is convenient to accept claims that validate your beliefs without verifying them and continue to think that there is no human component to their electronics. It feels better to us to ignore that our we are the main reason why people are working in such brutal conditions overseas.

Human rights and safety are and will continue to be an issue at Foxconn and other sweat-shop factories. Unfortunately, due to the prevailing secrecy of factory work, the main source of reporting on this issue is the companies themselves. Are children still working at Foxconn, quite probably at least according to Apple and according to human right's activists in China (who could also be lying), but they are working at a smaller proportion than Daisy would have us believe. Have people been poisoned from working with dangerous cleaning agents in China working at factories making products for Americans, yes, but not in Shenzhen. Have people been hurt due to unsafe working conditions, yes. Was the piece wrong, yes, much it was fabricated. For the purposes of Clutchfans discussion of the underlying issues, does that fabrication matter so much, no I don’t think so. The issues it presents are still very real.

While I feel like Daisey trafficked in a higher level of untruth than the following, I still think it gets into a similar situation: Rigoberta's Menchu's work, I, Rigoberta Menchu. Did she make up parts of her story, yes. Does it mean that human rights abuses against Guatemalans by a U.S. installed government never happened, no. Did it mean that her father was not incinerated by government forces while protesting, that her mother wasn't raped, tortured, killed, and mutilated while in prison, and that brother wasn't killed and left mutilated on a street in the town she lived in, no to all. But when David Stoll came out with his piece claiming that she had fabricated part of her story such as her level of education, people on the right began to miss the forest from the trees and conveniently ignore the underlying issues and criticize those who would point to any part of her story.

 

"Art is a lie that tells the truth." - Pablo Picasso

Mike Daisey is a creative writer and a theatre artist (and a darn good one). But he is not, and never has claimed to be, a reporter or newsman. He writes and performs about emotional truths, not literal ones. Go back and fact-check The Beatles or Ernest Hemingway and, assuming you are disappointed in Daisey, you might find you are similarly disappointed in them. In case you were otherwise confused, Bob Dylan was not literally "tangled up in blue."

So I find nothing wrong, nor even false, in what he wrote. That he let NPR use his work as a news story was a great and dishonest mistake though and of that he is certainly guilty. According to his own words on the matter he owns up to that mistake.

 

I don't fault the play he wrote, or his writing at all. I fault him during his interview with This American Life.

 

This is incredible. It's not fiction or fabrication, it's "emotional truth"! What a turn of phrase! His intentions were good!

Poor absent minded Mr. Daisey, he forgot to let NPR know it was made up. Honest mistake, happens to all of us. Poor guy.

 

I didn't say his intentions were good, nor that he forgot to inform NPR as to the literal truth of his monologue, nor that it was an honest mistake, nor that it happens to all of us, nor that he is a poor guy. In fact (how wonderfully novel to see you arguing FOR facts btw), I said I thought he was wrong to let NPR use the material in a news segment and he said he was wrong to do so as well.

Not surprised that you would scoff at a term like "emotional truth," which just happens to be my tool in trade.

What's funny about you doing that though is that you are among the greatest enemies of literal truth (or "facts" as we also know them) on the board.

Truthiness is your favorite as long as it leans in your favor.