Whipped Cream Difficulties

One great story that is just now breaking, and one sad story.

The great story: remember that “This American Life” episode about Apple’s factories in China? Aired back in January, I think? “#454: Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory”? (Amazon link provided for informational purposes only; I have removed my affiliate ID.)

This American Life and American Public Media’s Marketplace will reveal that a story first broadcast in January on This American Life contained numerous fabrications. This American Life will devote its entire program this weekend to detailing the errors in the story, which was an excerpt of Mike Daisey’s critically acclaimed one-man show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.”

More:

During fact checking before the broadcast of Daisey’s story, This American Life staffers asked Daisey for this interpreter’s contact information. Daisey told them her real name was Anna, not Cathy as he says in his monologue, and he said that the cell phone number he had for her didn’t work any more. He said he had no way to reach her.

 “At that point, we should’ve killed the story,” says Ira Glass, Executive Producer and Host of This American Life. “But other things Daisey told us about Apple’s operations in China checked out, and we saw no reason to doubt him. We didn’t think that he was lying to us and to audiences about the details of his story. That was a mistake.”

Excerpts are from the press release attached to the story on Jimbo’s website: the TAL website is currently inaccessible (it looks to me like they’re getting hammered).

Mike Daisey has a statement on his website, which is accessible:

My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity.

ETA 3/16 1:53 PM: TAL website seems to be accessible now.

ETA 3/16 2:05 PM: Selected shorts:

The China correspondent for the public radio show Marketplace tracked down the interpreter that Daisey hired when he visited Shenzhen China. The interpreter disputed much of what Daisey has been saying on stage and on our show.

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.

Daisey’s interpreter Cathy also disputes two of the most dramatic moments in Daisey’s story: that he met underage workers at Foxconn, and that a man with a mangled hand was injured at Foxconn making iPads (and that Daisey’s iPad was the first one he ever saw in operation).

The sad story, also by way of Jimbo: You may have seen the first part of this story earlier in the week. I didn’t cover it because it was well linked everywhere. Briefly, editorial editor Bob Caldwell of the Portland Oregonian died over the weekend. After some initial confusion, it came out that he hadn’t been found dead of a heart attack  in his parked car, but had passed away while engaged in a sex act with a 23-year-old woman.

That’s sad, but not the sad part I want to talk about. The initial information (that he’d been found dead in a parked car) was provided by a friend of the family who also worked for the Oregonian. That friend has been fired.

I understand both sides here. From editor Peter Bhatia’s summary of what went wrong:

…while we are used to sources lying to us, it is difficult to swallow when the source is a fellow Oregonian journalist.

But I understand the fired editor’s position, too. In a moment of grief and weakness, she chose to try to shield the family from the pain that would be caused by the circumstances of her friend’s death becoming public. I think she was wrong. I think she shouldn’t have lied. But I also think the paper could have had some compassion and sympathy for the position their editor was placed in: a one or two week unpaid suspension seems more reasonable to me. It may be that I’m a wimp. It may be that I’m not a serious journalist. But I feel a great deal of compassion for the fired editor, even though I think she made a mistake.