Dan, in fairness you also should link to Daisey’s blog, in which he points out that this American Life’s retraction is utter nonsense:

“Given the tone, you would think I had fabulated an elaborate hoax, filled with astonishing horrors that no one had ever seen before.

“except that we all know that isn’t true.”

http://mikedaisey.blogspot.com/

Having been to China more times than I can count, and having seen some of these factories myself, I can unequivocally state Foxconn is a different breed from the other multinationals operating there (or here, for that matter — Foxconn’s Houston factory is notorious for its its serial sexual harassment). twenty (and counting) on-campus suicides do not lie. Multiple factory explosions do not lie. Foxconn runs the only China factory I know of that have armed guards on the premises. (Keep in mind, guns are rare in China, and few criminals use them.)

I know you love Apple, but the fact is that when it comes to monitoring their supplier base, they say one thing and do another.

Media Nation » Three must-reads on the Mike Daisey meltdown

Why did the company keep its silence, when it knew a year ago what we know now? 

Mike Daisey began performing his off-Broadway monologue “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” in January 2011. the show, which cast a harsh light on the working conditions in the Chinese factories that produce nearly half of the world’s electronic devices, was presented as fact — a description of what Daisey saw first hand during a visit to China in May and June of 2010.

We now know, thanks to follow-up reporting by Rob Schmitz at American Public Media’s Marketplace, that Daisey’s monologue — as he reluctantly admits — was a piece of theater, not a factual report. It was concoction of things he saw, things he read about, things he just made up.

Daisey lied to Ira Glass, who  retracted on Friday a long excerpt of Daisey’s show that ran on This American Life in January. he lied to me last year when he stood by his reporting and told me — to my face — that he saw Foxconn guards carrying guns and met workers at the gates of the iPhone assembly plant as young, even, as 11 years old.

Glass confronted Daisey in an hour-long This American Life episode that aired on Saturday. It’s compelling radio. There’s a transcript here.

Executives at Apple (AAPL), who spend a lot of time in Chinese factories, knew that Daisey was passing fiction off as fact. and yet for more than a year — while Daisey performed his monologue in cities around country, spoke to reporters, wrote editorials, launched petitions and letter-writing campaigns — the company kept its silence. (At least on the record. see update below.)

It was an extraordinary feat of public relations forbearance.

Why didn’t Apple blow the whistle on Daisey — loudly and publicly – a year ago? I can think of two reasons.

1. the company didn’t want to give him an even broader stage by engaging with him in a public debate. they knew that if the world’s most valuable public company attacked a one-man show it would draw even more attention to Daisey and his message and tend to elevate him in the public’s eye to their level. (Note that it was only after the new York Times — a national newspaper — did its series on Apple that CEO Tim Cook spoke out.)

2. Apple knew that the issues Daisey described were real. Working conditions in Chinese factories are harsh by Western standards. Apple’s overtime rules are routinely ignored. Workers have been poisoned by N-hexane. Workers have been killed by dust explosions.

One of the best things about This American Life’s follow-up broadcast is that after Ira Glass confronts Daisey on the air — the silence as Daisey feels his credibility evaporating is painful — Glass returns the underlying issues in an interview with the new York Times’ Charles Duhigg:

Ira Glass: But to get to the normative question that’s kind of underlying all thereporting and all the discussion of this, the thing that we all want to know whenwe hear this is like, “Wait, should I feel bad about this?” as somebody who ownsthese products, should I feel bad? and I don’t know that I feel so bad when, whenI 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 andessentially let you make a decision on your own. Let me, let me pose theargument that people have posed to me about why you should feel bad, and youcan make of it what you will.and that argument is there were times in this nation when we had harsh workingconditions as part of our economic development. We decided as a nation that thatwas unacceptable. We passed laws in order to prevent those harsh workingconditions 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 toanother nation.So should you feel bad that someone is working 12 to 24 hours a day in order toproduce 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, butokay, 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 tojudge, but I think the the way to pose that question is… do you feel comfortableknowing that iPhones and iPads and, and other products could be manufactured inless harsh conditions, but that these harsh conditions and perpetuate because of aneconomy that you are 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 thereasons why it exists. if you made different choices, if you demanded differentconditions, if you demanded that other people enjoy the same work protectionsthat you yourself enjoy, then, then those conditions would be different overseas.Ira Glass: Charles Duhigg. You can find the series he did with David Barbozaabout Apple in China at the new York Times website. It’s called “TheiEconomy“

UPDATE: it turns out the Apple public relations staffers did talk to reporters — always off the record – about Mike Daisey, pointing out inaccuracies in his account and suggesting that it was extremely unlikely that one man could have seen as much as Daisey claimed he saw in one trip to China. among the journalists Apple tried to dissuade from doing the Daisey story were Ira Glass and This American Life producer Brian Reid.

Apple and the Daisey affair

March 16:

Retracting a Bombshell: This American Life has retracted a story that focused on a manufacturer of Apple products in China called Foxconn. The story helped ignite a debate about conditions at that plant. The story included a monologue performed by Mike Daisey called The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs. “It detailed alarming labor practices which he claimed to witness during his time visiting Foxconn, ” according to Wired. “Daisey lied to me,” the show’s host, Ira Glass, wrote in a blog post on Friday.  “That doesn’t excuse the fact that we never should’ve put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.” via Wired

Disobedient Clooney: A-lister George Clooney has been arrested outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington, D.C. with his father, Nick. The actor, who most recently starred in the movies “The Descendants” and “Ides of March,” is a long-time activist and has frequently visited the Sudanese region to raise awareness for the humanitarian crisis that has stricken the region in the wake of the conflict between Sudan and South Sudan. Clooney has been charged with civil disobedience offenses. (11:43 a.m.) via BBC News

Free Vasectomy Pizza: a urology practice in Cape Cod is offering a free, one-topping pizza to any man who has a vasectomy at their office, Cape Cod Times reports. The thinking behind it is to give guys a good reason to be couch potatoes just as March Madness is heating up, while at the same time downing a “pie for the sterile guy.” The practice even has a zesty advertising video. Apparently, March is a busy time for Urology Associates of Cape Cod. (10:04 a.m.) via The Dailywh.at

March 15

Groupon Titanic Trip: In the lead up to the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, a lucky Groupon subscriber won a super-duper cut-rate trip to see the sunken remains of the Titanic reports FoxNews Orlando. While others paid about $60K for trip, which includes descending 12,500 feet to the ocean floor in a submersible with “a team of scientists, engineers, and RMS Titanic historians,” the Groupon discount brought it down to $12,500. Included is a DVD of “Titanic,” signed by a genuine Leonardo de Caprio impersonator. Priceless. (5:28 p.m.) via Underwater Times

EuroMars: NASA caused plenty of upset last month when the space agency announced that it was going to pull out of the Europe-led ExoMars mission. NASA was a key partner in the mission, providing funding, instrumentation and vast amounts of experience of landing robots on the Red Planet. NASA’s pullout put ExoMars in jeopardy. But today, ESA has announced during a meeting in Paris that Russia will step in where NASA stepped out. (2:18 p.m.) via BBC News

Gecko-Stick your TV to the Wall: Forget those cumbersome wall mounts, next time you need to anchor your flat screen TV to the wall, all it may take is a bit of “Geckskin.” Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst studied the tendons of geckos to understand how they connect bone to muscle as well as how they stick and unstick to walls with superhero-like ease. Mimicking the amazing animal’s anatomy, the team came up with “Geckskin,” an index card-sized adhesive patch that can hold a maximum of 700 pounds while sticking to a smooth surface. (12:09 p.m.) via Inside Science

March 14

Argentina Changes Anti-abortion Laws: a court ruling on Tuesday clarified Argentina’s strict anti-abortion laws to allow women who have been raped to terminate their pregnancies without facing criminal charges. Previously the law only permitted abortions in cases where the mother was mentally incapacitated or her life was at risk. (4 p.m.) via CNN

Cheesy Sea Horse: a Cheeto in the shape of a seahorse is up for auction on Ebay, in case you’re interested. a Virginia couple on vacation in the Florida Keys was enjoying a few bags of Cheetos when the wife pulled out one in the shape of a seahorse. The couple recalled other Ebay items in the shape of real-world things (grilled cheese Virgin Mary, anyone?) that pulled in thousands. so they put the Cheeto up for sale on Ebay for a buy-it-now purchase of $8,000 in the hopes of helping coral reef protection. Current bid at the time of writing: $28.00. Free shipping. (1:05 a.m.) via Orlando Sentinal and Underwater Times

New Hip? Hold the Metal: As artificial hip technology gets more sophisticated, more Americans (about 285,000 each year) have gone under the knife to get rid of their chronic pain and regain a smoother walk. But sometimes technology backfires. Metal-on-metal hip replacements, where both the artificial ball and socket are made up of metal, have shown an alarmingly high failure rate of about 6 percent (compared with 1.7 to 2.3 percent for those with ceramic or plastic joints). Now a new British study suggests doctors should stop using the all-metal replacements altogether. In the United States, safety studies on the hips are ongoing. (11:55 a.m.) via New York Times

March 13

Earmuff Day: It’s Earmuff Day today in the United States! yes, really. according to Weather Underground, much of the country was unseasonably warm today, meaning that only people at the tops of mountains in the West needed earmuffs today. most of us needed sunblock. Earmuff Day came about because earmuffs were patented on this day in 1877. 5:25 p.m. via Holiday Insights

Don’t know Much About History…Books: Remember toting around that thick, heavy history textbook in school? Students at Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco have lighter backpacks thanks to a history program that uses no textbooks –- and they outscored their peers. Following a model created at Stanford University, the students instead analyze journal writings, memoirs, speeches, songs, photographs, illustrations, and other documents directly from different periods in history. at year’s end, a study found the young historians outperformed fellow students in reading comprehension, historical thinking, recall of historical facts, and general reasoning. The course model is now available as a download to all teachers for free from the Internet. so far the course has been downloaded more than a quarter of a million times. (1:00 p.m.) via Futurity

Enemies of the Internet: Reporters Without Borders has added Bahrain and Belarus to its list of Enemies of the Internet. these are countries that restrict its people from freely using the Internet to find or decimate information, particularly that with a political slant. In some countries, bloggers are imprisoned or even killed. The “Enemies of the Internet” list includes Bahrain, Belarus, Burma, China, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. (10:33 a.m.) via Deutsche Welle

Rise of RoboCop: Remote controlled helicopter police drones are being increasingly used to apprehend suspects, but there is concern that these robotic “eyes in the sky” could become platforms for non-lethal weapons. Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office has put an order in for a $300,000 ShadowHawk drone and Chief Deputy Randy McDaniel has said he’s open to the idea of attaching non-lethal weapons — such as tear gas launchers and rubber bullets. if this idea goes ahead, how long will it be before not-so-non-lethal weapons are attached to these flying ‘bots? have they not seen RoboCop?! (9:30 a.m.) via Slash Gear

Password Protect: off? As social media evolves from a “tool” into a ubiquitous means of communicating, there’s bound to be some controversy surrounding the balance between privacy and protection — especially when minors are involved. But at what point does protection go too far? In a Minnesota law suit, it is alleged that a 12-year-old girl was bullied by officials to hand over her Facebook password. The dispute began when the student apparently posted strong views against her school and teachers; the school then intervened when they were informed the student was talking about sex on her Facebook profile. The allegations are denied by the school, but it does raise some awkward questions about freedom of speech and child protection. (8:46 a.m.) via MSNBC

March 12

Hitchcock Day: Today is National Hitchcock Day and the lists of his best films are endless. Here’s one and here’s another one, and another. But if you want to hear from the man himself about what makes adults frightened (hint: “It’s all about ‘Red Riding Hood’”) or what he really thought of film in his day, you should check out this interview on YouTube. (5:30 p.m.) via YouTube

Kids on TV: This infographic, from OnlineCollegeCourses.com, outlines the state of children watching TV today, and it’s shocking. We’ve all seen the stats before — kids on average watch more TV per year than hours spent in school, for instance — but it’s always nice to see it all in one place. (3:54 p.m.) via AllTop.com

Mo’ Money: if you live in California and are thinking about buying an electric car, now is the time. The state is offering an additional $2,500 tax credit on top of the federal tax credit of $7,500 for anyone who buys a Ford Focus Electric. That’s $10K off the base price of $39,200. if you drive a Ford Focus Electric (or a Chevy Volt for that matter) in Cali, you can also drive in the HOV lane without a passenger, too. how awesome is that. (3:12 p.m.) via Inhabitat

MOHO Mapped: GOCE satellite gravity measurements have allowed geologists to map the boundary between Earth’s crust and its mantle in unprecedented detail. The discontinuity — called the MOHO boundary, named after its discoverer Croatian seismologist Andrija Mohorovičić — exists at different depths around the world and is a place where rock properties change and allow for seismic waves in the mantle to travel at faster velocities than near the surface where the predominantly baslatic and granitic rocks are less dense than the deeper peridotites. The basaltic-rich oceanic crust is much thinner in general than the granitic continental crust and the Moho boundary as a result is closer to the surface under the oceans. In the new map the details of the more complex geology of the continents shows the variations that occur with depth under the mountain ranges and is expected to help with plate tectonic movements and oil and gas exploration. (12:05 p.m.) via BBC

Spicy fat? no Sweat: Like a spicy curry, but worried about the ghee? There may be less reason to worry. a new study from Penn State finds that strong spice in a meal helps slash the levels of triglycerides, a type of fat, in the blood. Testing foods that included a blend of garlic, turmeric, as well as paprika, rosemary and ginger, the Penn State researchers were surprised to see a drop in blood’s fat levels, as well as a noted 20 percent dip in insulin levels. not only does the study suggest eating spicy foods might hold some health benefit, it might also mean that someday strong spices could play a role in medicines. (10:50 a.m.) via NPR

Photos: Corbis / Ebay

Foxconn Story Retracted: DNews Nuggets

A monologist who shined a harsh light on Apple has himself come under scrutiny

“Daisey lied to me,” wrote This American Life executive producer Ira Glass Friday as he announced that his radio show was withdrawing its most popular episode — an excerpt of Mike Daisey’s off-Broadway show about Apple’s (AAPL) labor practices in China — and canceling a live presentation of Daisey’s “The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs” that WBEZ Chicago had scheduled for April 7.

“We’re horrified to have let something like this onto public radio.” Glass wrote on his blog.

As an accompanying press release notes, the response to the original episode, “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory,” was significant.

The same month the episode aired, the New York Times ran a front-page investigative series about Apple’s overseas manufacturing, and there were news reports about Foxconn workers threatening group suicide in a protest over their treatment.

Faced with all this scrutiny of its manufacturing practices, Apple announced that for the first time it will allow an outside third party to audit working conditions at those factories and – for the first time ever – it released a list of its suppliers.

Asked at a investors summit about Apple’s labor practices, CEO Tim Cook did not deny that there were widespread problems in the company’s Asian supply chain — a supply chain shared by every other major electronics manufacturer — but reiterated Apple’s commitment to improving conditions there:

“I realize that the supply chain is complex and I’m sure that you realize this. and the issues surrounding it can be complex, but our commitment is very, very simple: We believe that every worker has the right to a fair and safe work environment, free of discrimination, where they can earn competitive wages and they can voice their concerns freely. and Apple suppliers must live up to this to do business with Apple.” (link)

So what exactly were the “significant fabrications” in Daisey’s account of his visits to Foxconn and other Chinese factories. according to the press release, some are small, some are larger.

• The number of factories Daisey visited in China and the number of workers he spoke with didn’t check out. Presumably they were inflated.
• He claimed to have met a group of 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 nearly 1,000 miles away from the city Daisey visited.
• Daisey told this American Life’s fact-checkers that his Chinese interpreter, whom he called Cathy in the show, was really named Anna and that her cell phone number didn’t work. But a reporter for American Public Media’s Marketplace, Rob Schmitz, tracked her down. her professional name was indeed Cathy.
• Cathy said two of the most dramatic moments in Daisey’s story — his meeting with underage workers and with a man whose mangled hand was injured making iPads that he had never seen until Daisey showed him his — never happened.
• She also said, on air to Schmitz, that the guards at Foxconn did not carry guns, as Daisey claimed, and that he never saw the crowded dorm rooms he described.

“In our original broadcast, we fact checked all the things that Daisey said about Apple’s operations in China,” says Glass, “and those parts of his story were true, except for the underage workers, who are rare. We reported that discrepancy in the original show. But with this week’s broadcast, we’re letting the audience know that too many of the details about the people he says he met are in dispute for us to stand by the story. I suspect that many things that Mike Daisey claims to have experienced personally did not actually happen, but listeners can judge for themselves.”

“It was completely wrong for me to have it on your show,” Daisey tells Glass in the follow-up program, “and that’s something I deeply regret.” he also expressed his regret to “the people who are listening, the audience of this American Life, who know that it is a journalism enterprise, if they feel betrayed.”

Having met Daisey and written several stories about his work (see here, here and here), we felt obliged to reach out to him for further comment. We haven’t heard back.

UPDATE: Rob Schmitz’s Marketplace piece is available here.

What were the ‘falsehoods’ in Mike Daisey’s Apple show?