Critically acclaimed radio program “This American Life” is retracting a report it ran on Apple’s labor practices in China that was based on a one-man play that turned out to be fabricated.
Back in January, “This American Life” ran a 39-minute excerpt of a play by Mike Daisey recounting harrowing stories from his supposed interactions with Apple workers on a trip to China. The play made Daisey a darling of the left and spawned repeated media appearances.The episode became the program’s most popular show in its history, with 888,000 downloads.
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Among the claims Daisey made in his monologue was that he met with workers in China who had been poisoned by assembling iPhones.
But a correspondent for the show in China, Rob Schmitz, finally tracked down Daisey’s translator on his trip, and she informed him that the events recounted by Daisey didn’t actually take place. When asked, Daisey confirmed that he made up the meetings.
“Look. I’m not going to say that I didn’t take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard. But I stand behind the work,” Daisey said. “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.”
Now, “This American Life” is not only retracting the story, but running a show this weekend documenting the errors in the original show.
The show’s host and producer, Ira Glass, released a statement saying that, “Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast. That doesn’t excuse the fact that we never should’ve put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.”
