The Machinations of Mike Daisey
By now, everybody has heard about US public radio’s The American Life renunciation of artist Mike Daisey’s early January one-man show “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory” depicting ‘inhuman’ working conditions at the Shenzhen and other plants of Taiwanese-owned Foxconn Technology Group, the OEM maker of iPhones and iPads for Apple and other major Western brands.
In his monologue, Daisey described young workers, some under-age, logging unbearable overtime hours and crippling themselves assembling Apple products at Foxconn’s towering factories that employ hundreds of thousands. Daisey claimed that some were even poisoned by hexane, used in glues for shoes, leather products, and roofing. The episode became the most popular podcast in the history of The American Life with 880,000+ downloads (750,000 being the norm) and 206,000+ streams to date.
But Mr. Daisey’s stage performance was pure theatre, not journalism, full of fabrications and misrepresentations; so much so that Ira Glass, the host of the public radio program devoted an entire subsequent episode simply called “Retraction” to repudiate Mr. Daisey. Mr Glass peppered Mr Daisey with questions in an interview for the episode and apologized copiously to listeners, ironically emerging more noble and trustworthy than before the incident, commented a writer for MacLean’s. Daisey admitted that he never met any poisoned workers and guessed at the ages of some of the workers he met. (Chinese/Asians tend look younger to the Western eye.)
In various press interviews and on stage, Mr. Daisey stated that he had travelled to Shenzhen and interviewed hundreds of workers from Foxconn who had suffered egregiously from their grinding work. He said that he even met a worker with hands maimed by a metal press in the assembly of iPads. “I know that people in charge know about these things and chose not to address them. And that’s hard to swallow when you see the damage it does”, he told the Associated Press last year.
A statement on the This American Life blog disclosed that following the initial program, public radio program Marketplace China Correspondent Robert Schmitz held certain doubts about Mr. Daisey’s story. Mr. Schmitz had reported much about the Foxconn Apple supply chain and had first-hand knowledge of the issues. He located and interviewed Cathy Lee (Li Guifen), Mr. Daisey’s Chinese interpreter, despite Daisey’s attempts at hiding her identity and her cell number. Cathy Lee disputed much of what Mr. Daisey had been telling to his audiences since 2010 and on the radio, in particular, the meeting of underage workers at Foxconn and the worker with the mangled hand.
On the same blog, Mr. Glass wrote: “…We are retracting the story because we can’t vouch for its truth. This is not a story we commissioned…Daisey lied to me and This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast…We’re horrified to have something like this onto public radio…Our program adheres to the same journalistic standards as other national shows, and in this case, we did not live up to those standards.”
Apple had refuted Mr. Daisey’s allegations for months to little avail. Salt was rubbed into the wound last January when the New York Times also published an investigative series of reports on dangerous working conditions of Apple workers in China, including an explosion at a iPad plant that killed 4 and injured 77.
Partially exonerated by the public radio retraction, Foxconn nonetheless refrained from suing Mr. Daisey in spite of taking a heavy hit to its reputation. “Our corporate image has been totally ruined…(However), we have no plans to take legal action…We hope nothing similar will happen again”, Simon Hsing, Foxconn’s spokesman, told Reuters.
Mr. Daisey’s shenanigans aside, scandals and tragedies have plagued Foxconn since 2010 with the spate of worker suicides that caught the world’s attention, putting Foxconn’s ‘militarized’ regimentation in the spotlight. In my next blog, I will take a closer look at Foxconn’s dark side and measures since taken to help curb worker dissatisfaction.
By now, everybody has heard about US public radio’s The American Life renunciation of artist Mike Daisey’s early January one-man show “Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory” depicting ‘inhuman’ working conditions at the Shenzhen and other plants of Taiwanese-owned Foxconn Technology Group, the OEM maker of iPhones and iPads for Apple and other major Western brands.
In his monologue, Daisey described young workers, some under-age, logging unbearable overtime hours and crippling themselves assembling Apple products at Foxconn’s towering factories that employ hundreds of thousands. Daisey claimed that some were even poisoned by hexane, used in glues for shoes, leather products, and roofing. The episode became the most popular podcast in the history of The American Life with 880,000+ downloads (750,000 being the norm) and 206,000+ streams to date.
But Mr. Daisey’s stage performance was pure theatre, not journalism, full of fabrications and misrepresentations; so much so that Ira Glass, the host of the public radio program devoted an entire subsequent episode simply called “Retraction” to repudiate Mr. Daisey. Mr Glass peppered Mr Daisey with questions in an interview for the episode and apologized copiously to listeners, ironically emerging more noble and trustworthy than before the incident, commented a writer for MacLean’s. Daisey admitted that he never met any poisoned workers and guessed at the ages of some of the workers he met. (Chinese/Asians tend look younger to the Western eye.)
In various press interviews and on stage, Mr. Daisey stated that he had travelled to Shenzhen and interviewed hundreds of workers from Foxconn who had suffered egregiously from their grinding work. He said that he even met a worker with hands maimed by a metal press in the assembly of iPads. “I know that people in charge know about these things and chose not to address them. And that’s hard to swallow when you see the damage it does”, he told the Associated Press last year.
A statement on the This American Life blog disclosed that following the initial program, public radio program Marketplace China Correspondent Robert Schmitz held certain doubts about Mr. Daisey’s story. Mr. Schmitz had reported much about the Foxconn Apple supply chain and had first-hand knowledge of the issues. He located and interviewed Cathy Lee (Li Guifen), Mr. Daisey’s Chinese interpreter, despite Daisey’s attempts at hiding her identity and her cell number. Cathy Lee disputed much of what Mr. Daisey had been telling to his audiences since 2010 and on the radio, in particular, the meeting of underage workers at Foxconn and the worker with the mangled hand.
On the same blog, Mr. Glass wrote: “…We are retracting the story because we can’t vouch for its truth. This is not a story we commissioned…Daisey lied to me and This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast…We’re horrified to have something like this onto public radio…Our program adheres to the same journalistic standards as other national shows, and in this case, we did not live up to those standards.”
Apple had refuted Mr. Daisey’s allegations for months to little avail. Salt was rubbed into the wound last January when the New York Times also published an investigative series of reports on dangerous working conditions of Apple workers in China, including an explosion at a iPad plant that killed 4 and injured 77.
Partially exonerated by the public radio retraction, Foxconn nonetheless refrained from suing Mr. Daisey in spite of taking a heavy hit to its reputation. “Our corporate image has been totally ruined…(However), we have no plans to take legal action…We hope nothing similar will happen again”, Simon Hsing, Foxconn’s spokesman, told Reuters.
Mr. Daisey’s shenanigans aside, scandals and tragedies have plagued Foxconn since 2010 with the spate of worker suicides that caught the world’s attention, putting Foxconn’s ‘militarized’ regimentation in the spotlight. In my next blog, I will take a closer look at Foxconn’s dark side and measures since taken to help curb worker dissatisfaction.
It is nice to hear this, AND looking forward to reading more.