This really ought to be more of a bombshell story than it has been so far. Public radio’s nails-on-a-chalkboard show “This American Life” in January broadcast a devastating hit piece which exposed Apple as a brutal taskmaster overseeing near-slavery conditions in its Chinese factories. The piece led to innumerable follow-up stories in major media outlets bashing Apple as the new Snidely Whiplash of Capitalism. Liberal Web sites and groups collected signatures for anti-Apple petitions, started Apple boycotts, picketed Apple outlets…
…and then…
…[dead air for about seven minutes]…
…This American Life just admitted that the whole story was basically faked.
Turns out the “journalist” was a performance artist named Mike Daisey who conceived of his report as a sort of one-man show in which he dreams of how evil Apple could be ought to be, to match his worldview in which successful companies are always inherently evil.
How did Mike Daisey explain his mendacity? With one of the best non-apologies in the history of lying:
“I’m not going to say that I didn’t take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard,” Daisey tells Schmitz and Glass. “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.”
Uh-huh.
Mr. Daisey’s explanation of his serial lying — “a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard” — and This American Life’s eager willingness to embrace his story, could actually be applied to almost all liberal journalism these days. In fact, that’s what they teach in Journalism School now — “Advocacy Journalism,” in which the narrative (generally a sob story with capitalism as the villain) is more important than hewing to the facts. If the narrative and the facts aren’t aligned — go with the narrative.
The fact that Mr. Daisey tried, and almost succeeded, in taking down a major corporation with a pack of lies, which were then parroted by nearly every leftist in the nation, should be the journalistic scandal of the year.
But who controls the media? The same people who ran with Daisey’s narrative. Expect the story to sink like a stone.
UPDATE:
Perhaps they should change the name of the show to “This American Lie.”
As a journalist I’m shocked, shocked! there’s lying in NPR. My journalism professor and mentor, who was a liberal by the by, would have kittens over the crap that’s being taught these days.
She instilled in me lo, these many years ago, a love for the news and for journalism and a sense that it was a calling, not just a job.
These nitwits have either forgotten, or were never taught what that calling is all about — being watchdogs of everybody on any side and making sure the public hears the truth.
Exactly. My college roommate was a photojournalism major, taught by old-school journalists. You get the facts right, or your story doesn’t see the light of day, period. She worked at the student newspaper–all kinds of crazy hours, running all over the region covering stories (yep, this was before the internetz and cell phones). She did photos for a story on political corruption, which resulted in arrests, trials, and convictions. Said story was so good it was nominated for a Pulitzer. Not bad for a bunch of students, but they were guided by actual journalists, not the slime posing as journalists today.
Unfortunately, people like my roommate were passed over for jobs in favor of tabloid “dirty laundry” types. Needless to say, she doesn’t work in journalism.
One interesting question about the report is — Would NPR have been more alert in scrutinizing the report if they had been going after Apple computer with Steve Jobs at its helm? Apple already had its enemies on the left due to its success even before Jobs’ death last fall, just as all successful iconic U.S. corporations do. But among the media elites, there was still a certain aura about the company’s founder that had made the normal liberal elites in the press willing to carve out a special exemption for the folks in Cuppertino (and in fact many of those same types are also Apple fan-boys and girls).
Targeting Steve Jobs’ Apple may have given the NPR brain-trust a moment’s pause in the blow-back they might get from their own socio-economic demographic. Going after the post-Jobs Apple was more down their alleyway, since there’s no feeling of emotion in the same way with Tim Cook; he’s just another part of the generally evil big business community.
One portion of this story which you’re overlooking is that NPR essentially debunked themselves. When Daisey presented the original story to Glass and Reed (host and producer, respectively, of “This American Life”) he told them that the translator he used had a cell phone that didn’t work, and that she was essentially unavailable to corroborate his story about what people had said about Apple. They essentially bought that, didn’t try to look for her, and ran the story, apparently because (as your article implies) their worldview has Apple as a villain, because it’s big and successful.
Then another NPR program, “Marketplace,” got involved. “Marketplace” is more capitalism-oriented than most of NPR, and while it’s liberal in slant it’s not unaware of the benefits of capitalism, at least in abstract. When everyone else in media began their pile-on to investigate Apple, following in “This American Life’s” footsteps, “Marketplace” jumped on the bandwagon too…but they actually have someone in China, and that individual found Daisey’s translator, who promptly began to refute major portions of Daisey’s story. This caused the whole thing to unravel, with the result that “This American Life” host Glass has written a blog apologizing to Apple, and says that this week’s show will essentially be one long mea culpa, outlining all the inaccuracies in the original show (which didn’t take up a full episode). While Daisey’s apology is pretty mealy-mouthed and essentially tries to dodge the larger issue, Glass’s is pretty blunt: Daisey “lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story” and Glass explicitly says that this doesn’t exonerate him or anyone else at his show: they should not have run the segment without the proper fact-checking, no matter what. Here’s the link:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory
I’ll grant you they were pretty stupid to run the original story, and I’ll double-down on your comment that you don’t like “This American Life”: I can’t stand it. He does these spoken pieces where he pauses…at inexplicable moments…for no discernable reason. Drives me up the freakin’ wall. Given that, he seems to have come clean pretty thoroughly, and his response to someone else discovering the significant errors (he terms them fabrications in the blog) has been way past the typical retraction on Page A38 of the paper. When you go to “This American Life’s” website, this is the first thing you’re drawn to: it’s the first story listed, or it was when I looked a few minutes ago.
The link you give in your comment is already the very link I give in my original post, where I say “With one of the best non-apologies in the history of lying.”
I assumed that people would go to the link and read the full story.
But thanks for summarizing it here anyway. My goal here was not to summarize all the details (which have been discussed elsewhere) but rather to point out that this is almost a prototypical example of how, to liberals, “Facts are something that get in the way of a good story.”
This is an abysmal story — especially how it quickly became “mainstream” — justifying and amplifying the Left’s assault on capitalism.
Like other Big Lies — even though retracted — it’s already made it’s way into “hearts and minds.” Something like the “Al Durah” story about Israel — which was proven to be a lie, which caused so many “revenge” deaths. It justified false “beliefs,” with people saying, “Well, if it isn’t exactly true — it has happened in other cases (though it has not happened “in other cases.”)
It’s hard to turn this false “narrative” around — even with the admission of lies. Thank you Zombie for writing about it.
I think it’s a big story — and I think, at least all the “right” blogs should be carrying it at the top of their websites and in huge letters.
“Another attack on Capitalism Proven to be a Lie!”
I can’t remember, would it be slander or libel? And how much of the government funding would be paid out to Apple as a result of the lawsuit?
It’s neither slander nor libel. The story is true. That there isn’t any proof only demonstrates how well Apple has orchestrated a cover-up. We thought the story was true but when we couldn’t find any proof then we knew it to be true.
Yes Virginia, the fact that the earth isn’t warming is indeed proof of Global Warming. Don’t track those carbon footprints into the house!
“This American Life” is not an NPR program. It and “Marketplace” are produced by American Public Media, the same outfit that produces “A Prairie Home Companion.” APMis the second largest producer of public radio programs in the United States of America after NPR. Its non-profit parent, American Public Media Group, also owns and operates radio stations in Minnesota, California, and Florida.
Good catch!
I looked into it and you are right. Many stations broadcast NPR shows and This American Life, often intermingled or in-a-row, but This American Life is in fact distributed by a different outfit. Most people assume that TAL is an NPR show, jumping to the same seemingly self-evident conclusion that I (and other bloggers) did. It’s a very common conception that “NPR” is just a generic term for all non-profit programming, but it is a specific company that does not have a monopoly on programming.
Accordingly, I have now fixed all references to NPR in the post.
Thanks for the prompt fact-checking!
You are right that NPR and APM/PRI are separate outfits with their own programming units and distribution channels. NPR affiliated stations often instert APM/PRI programming into their schedules but those decisions are made locally, independent of their NPR relationships. That said, it may be incumbent upon those of us who regularly tune in to NPR stations to demand a rethink of the APM/PRI relationship. TAL has been caught in a lie and cannot admit it cleanly. Marketplace may have forced Daisey and Glass to say something but the folks at On The Media are tying themselves in knots trying to say “the narrative was true even though the facts are wrong.” This is bigger than just Daisey and Glass.
Zombie, it isnt like you to misspell simple words. I hate to nit-pick, but ‘advocacy journalism’ is spelled ‘p-r-o-p-a-g-a-n-d-a.’
Make sure your spell-check is turned on.
Isn’t Mike Daisey the guy that wrote “21 Dog Years: Doing Time at Amazon.com” about working in Amazon customer service and how hellish it was there? Now I wonder how true any of that was.
Undoubtedly it was “fictionalized” to make a better story. Probably all his stuff is.
The weird part is, the last time one of these kind of guys was caught doing this, his name was Stephen Glass — and the producer of this fake story was named Ira Glass.
Coincidence? Or should we just steer clear of anyone named “Glass” in the future?
George Glass is probably safe…
Philip Glass, too, hopefully.
“The truth? You can’t handle the truth. So we’re giving you the narrative, instead.” Mike Daisey and NPR
“Wait. Wait, look over there!” NPR
“This little bump in the road won’t affect our federal funding, will it?” NPR
“A man is never more truthful than when he acknowledges himself a liar.” Mark Twain
– ignore both.
I was in the supermarket checkout lane today, and one of the enquirer-type rags was screaming ‘ White House Reporter Murdered’ – with a picture of Brietbart.
Made me smile.
wait, wait – the rag made me smile. I terribly regret the loss of Andrew Breitbart, our most powerful champion, until we are all Brietbart.
Not to worry, Bill; I think everyone understood your point.
And misses him too.
Daisey’s actually right. That entire program — “This (un)American Life” is just smug buzz elevated to performance art. His lies fit in perfectly with the “self-love through interpretive dance” crowd at NPR, which is exactly why they put it on the air. They (NPR) had no way of detecting any falsehoods in his propaganda piece, because that’s *exactly* what they believe.
The truly funny part is NPR frantically doing the Major Renault: “I’m shocked, *shocked* to discover that we are producing leftist propaganda here.” bit.
I hope Daisey sues Marketplace for bullying him, and hurting his precious self esteem. I bet the poor baby feels betrayed.
You know, given that Apple is well-loved by the lefty types, I’d have to say that that is the heart of the reason why this got any investigation at all. If ANY other electronics company had been bashed, there would have been no investigation, and no NPR type would be doing retractions. We would instead be told how even though the story is a total fabrication, it *ought* to be true, and therefore tehre will be no retraction. Lefties love their fondleslabs, and don’t want to harsh their smug buzz by thinking that they might be connected to human misery.