Snippet: Not a Journalist ☇

I finally got around to listening to the podcast of This American Life‘s episode entitled “Retraction” and it’s some pretty damning evidence. As discussed throughout the week, Mike Daisy, who has been performing The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, a monologue about worker conditions for Apple in China. He shared some on a prior episode of This American Life, and it turns out a number of his items, which describe horrific conditions, didn’t happen at the Foxconn plant in question or were simply not true.

Although I’m all for safe and fair worker conditions overseas, flat out making up stories for attention is bogus and could be potentially damaging. His stories made the rounds to larger media outlets, including CBS News, and may have raised some awareness of the possibilities of harsh conditions, but it also pointed a lot of blame that was not due. His argument the entire time was that he was a performer, not a journalist.