5 ms·

from http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed-apple-critic-made-details http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed-ap...: I pre

by VMG 15y ago

from http://www.marketplace.org/topics/life/ieconomy/acclaimed-apple-critic-made-details 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 describes visiting factory dorm rooms with beds stacked to the ceiling. But Cathy says none of this happened. I must say that while listening to the story some things seemed a little exaggerated, and the his whole style didn't seem very objective. But I didn't suspect that he made things up from whole cloth.

jt2190 15y ago
I had the same impression. As I listened, I remember thinking: "This seems very dramatic and and one sided." But I never really considered This American Life to be news so much as short stories. I just assumed that I was listening to a story with a strong (non-objective) point of view.
dotBen 15y ago
Marketplace, which uncovered the discrepancies and is linked to above, is an awesome little 30 minute show broadcast in the evenings on public radio. Although it is rooted in finance news, they end up covering all sorts of interesting business stories.
eli 15y ago
This is the thing that really bugs me. It was a well told story. I can even buy that it gets at a larger truth (even if the details are exaggerated or even invented). But then don't pretend like it's 100% literal truth. And then TAL made such a point of the fact checking when they broadcast their version. Oof.
- tptacek 15y ago
  A very- well- told current events story should generally make you suspicious. Humans have a bias towards narratives that is easy to exploit, sometimes without even meaning to. With a great deal of effort it is possible to craft moving narratives about events that happened after the facts of a story have settled. But when a story is breaking through the lens of a riveting narrative, start worrying.
aaronharnly 15y ago
Has no one considered the possibility that this Chinese citizen, who lives and works in China, might not be well served by asserting the truth of Daisey's story? His apology seems to concede a fair amount of dramatization, and he didn't (in advance of hearing the Ira/Mike conversation) appear to assert the truth of those specific parts of the story. But supposing he did stand by some of these details, we'd have a he said/she said, with strong incentives on each side.
- rbarooah 15y ago
  Are you seriously suggesting that he was telling the truth the in the original piece, but is now lying in his retraction?
- tptacek 15y ago
  Daisey has himself conceded dishonesty (though he calls it "dramatic license").
- rhizome 15y ago
  To follow that logic would be a worse case of he-said/she-said journalism than which has been lambasted for for years (and which arguably inspired NPR's recent statement of recommittment to actual journalism).
brudgers 15y ago
>"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/apple-admits-child-labor-growing-problem-its-china-factories 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 underage workers - and to do so, he literally employs, he-said she-said. Furthermore, Mr. Schmitz has reported (again for Marketplace) on ordinary Chinese reporting to have been threatened for speaking ill of Apple: I recently returned to Tongxin village to see if things had changed since Kaedar shut down the production lines. This time, nobody wanted to talk to me. Some people hid in their homes when they saw me. When I ask two men about the pollution, they say, "What pollution?' There's no pollution here." Another man said he and others who spoke to journalists have been threatened -- he angrily accused me of working for Apple. I ask one woman if she's been threatened. "I don't know," she says nervously. But then Dong Qiaozhen invites me inside her house. Dong Qiaozhen: Yes, we've been threatened. Village officials have warned us not to talk to reporters about the pollution. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/apple-economy/china-concerns-grow-over-environmental-costs-apple-products http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/apple-economy/china-c...
- jonhendry 15y ago
  Chinese village governments are horribly corrupt. If a villager with a complaint against the local government goes to Beijing to get redress from the central government, the village often has goons and police who will abduct and imprison the villager for long periods, with all manner of maltreatment, including beatings. The villagers might have been threatened, but it probably wasn't Apple who did it. The suppliers are probably lying to Apple about their environmental controls, then polluting to increase profits. So the supplier's owners or management, who might be important Party figures, or military officials, leans on the local officials, to lean on the villagers.
- Tloewald 15y ago
  I think it's telling that a reporter investigating reports of pollution and poor labor comditions was accused of working for Apple.

by VMG 15y ago

jt2190 15y ago

I had the same impression. As I listened, I remember thinking: "This seems very dramatic and and one sided." But I never really considered This American Life to be news so much as short stories. I just assumed that I was listening to a story with a strong (non-objective) point of view.

dotBen 15y ago

Marketplace, which uncovered the discrepancies and is linked to above, is an awesome little 30 minute show broadcast in the evenings on public radio. Although it is rooted in finance news, they end up covering all sorts of interesting business stories.

eli 15y ago

This is the thing that really bugs me. It was a well told story. I can even buy that it gets at a larger truth (even if the details are exaggerated or even invented). But then don't pretend like it's 100% literal truth. And then TAL made such a point of the fact checking when they broadcast their version. Oof.

tptacek 15y ago
A very- well- told current events story should generally make you suspicious. Humans have a bias towards narratives that is easy to exploit, sometimes without even meaning to. With a great deal of effort it is possible to craft moving narratives about events that happened after the facts of a story have settled. But when a story is breaking through the lens of a riveting narrative, start worrying.

aaronharnly 15y ago

Has no one considered the possibility that this Chinese citizen, who lives and works in China, might not be well served by asserting the truth of Daisey's story? His apology seems to concede a fair amount of dramatization, and he didn't (in advance of hearing the Ira/Mike conversation) appear to assert the truth of those specific parts of the story. But supposing he did stand by some of these details, we'd have a he said/she said, with strong incentives on each side.

rbarooah 15y ago
Are you seriously suggesting that he was telling the truth the in the original piece, but is now lying in his retraction?
tptacek 15y ago
Daisey has himself conceded dishonesty (though he calls it "dramatic license").
rhizome 15y ago
To follow that logic would be a worse case of he-said/she-said journalism than which has been lambasted for for years (and which arguably inspired NPR's recent statement of recommittment to actual journalism).

brudgers 15y ago

>"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/apple-admits-child-labor-growing-problem-its-china-factories 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 underage workers - and to do so, he literally employs, he-said she-said. Furthermore, Mr. Schmitz has reported (again for Marketplace) on ordinary Chinese reporting to have been threatened for speaking ill of Apple: I recently returned to Tongxin village to see if things had changed since Kaedar shut down the production lines. This time, nobody wanted to talk to me. Some people hid in their homes when they saw me. When I ask two men about the pollution, they say, "What pollution?' There's no pollution here." Another man said he and others who spoke to journalists have been threatened -- he angrily accused me of working for Apple. I ask one woman if she's been threatened. "I don't know," she says nervously. But then Dong Qiaozhen invites me inside her house. Dong Qiaozhen: Yes, we've been threatened. Village officials have warned us not to talk to reporters about the pollution. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/apple-economy/china-concerns-grow-over-environmental-costs-apple-products http://www.marketplace.org/topics/tech/apple-economy/china-c...

jonhendry 15y ago
Chinese village governments are horribly corrupt. If a villager with a complaint against the local government goes to Beijing to get redress from the central government, the village often has goons and police who will abduct and imprison the villager for long periods, with all manner of maltreatment, including beatings. The villagers might have been threatened, but it probably wasn't Apple who did it. The suppliers are probably lying to Apple about their environmental controls, then polluting to increase profits. So the supplier's owners or management, who might be important Party figures, or military officials, leans on the local officials, to lean on the villagers.
Tloewald 15y ago
I think it's telling that a reporter investigating reports of pollution and poor labor comditions was accused of working for Apple.