I can't believe that This American Life, who I love, lied to me about Apple, who I also love!! My world suddenly makes no sense.
Today This American Life, the classic public radio show, retracted their recent massively influential and critical story on Apple's operations in China. It turns out that the original show was littered with fabrications.
Mike Daisey, the creator of the piece, continues to stand by it. But he now helpfully clarifies that his episode "is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge" that "uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story...."
Oh, poor Ira Glass. Beautiful, melodious Ira Glass.
Actually, what I find most interesting about the formal retraction is that at no point (as far as I can tell) does host Ira Glass actually apologize for the damage they may have done to Apple. That must have been a deliberate decision. I wonder why they took that approach?
I see that I can still download the This American Life podcast from iTunes, so maybe Apple is totally forgiving of the failings of others. Or maybe this is just the new, less angry post-Jobs Apple?
You know, Hans, this whole thing would be a non-issue if you just hated Apple. It's easy! Try it...see, I'm doing it as I type this.
ReplyDeleteThey didn't apologize to Apple, or remove the original podcast, because the facts and basic details of labour abuses in Apple factories are true, as detailed in a series in the New York Times. All Mike Daisy did was take poetic license by collapsing them into one trip, and saying he met all of the people in person, whereas some of it was lifted from reports from elsewhere in China. But the basic facts are true. The biggest danger of the retraction is precisely that people will think, "Oh, okay, nothing to worry about with Apple - it was all a fraud."
ReplyDeleteBut the sad truth is, nobody here really cares. Apple - like Nike - is an unbreakable brand. And just as fast as sweat-shops went from being a serious issue in the late 1990s to being a joke on The Simpsons and South Park, this too will fade. Bring on the iPhone 5 and the iPad4...