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Subscribe to RSSAn episode of the popular weekly radio program "This American Life" that painted a damaging picture of life for employees at factories that make Apple products in China contained "significant fabrications," the show said Friday.
"We're horrified to have let something like this onto public radio," Ira Glass, the public radio show's executive producer and host, said in a blog post. "Our program adheres to the same journalistic standards as the other national shows, and in this case, we did not live up to those standards."
The program retracted the Jan. 6 piece that is believed to have started the recent spate of articles examining Apple manufacturer Foxconn.
The 39-minute piece received 888,000 downloads and became its most popular podcast, according to the show. The story detailed what it said were extremely poor working conditions of Chinese workers making products such as iPhones and iPads at factories owned by a company called Foxconn, which also manufactures products for other electronics giants.
Apple protesters hit stores, hack Foxconn
The piece vaulted Mike Daisey into the role of Apple's chief critic, the post on NPR.org said, and also inspired a Change.org petition that collected more than 250,000 signatures demanding that Apple better the working conditions at the factories. According to the statement, the program did not commission the piece, but grabbed it from Daisey's one-man performance, "The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs."
In a press release, the show said it first learned Daisey had fabricated parts of his story when the public radio program "Marketplace" tracked down Daisey's interpreter, who disputed parts of Daisey's monologue.
"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," Glass said. "That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake." 'This American Life' will devote its entire program this weekend to detailing the errors in the story," the press release said.
During fact checking before the broadcast of Daisey's story, staffers asked Daisey for this interpreter's contact information. According to the press release, Daisey told them her cell phone didn't work and provided an incorrect name. He said he had no way to reach her.
"At that point, we should've killed the story," Glass said. "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."
The New York Times also documented the cramped living conditions of Foxconn employees, as well as excessive hours on the job and seven-day workweeks in which employees stand for hours without break. The article included reports of underage employees and workers exposed to deadly chemicals used to build and clean Apple products, documented deadly accidents at the plant and included damning quotes about Apple's ambivalence about working conditions. Other published accounts reported worker suicides at the plant, as well as the very low pay -- $1.78 an hour, according to another report by Business Insider.
According to the press release, Daisey's interpreter, Li Guifen (who goes by the name Cathy Lee professionally when working with westerners) disputed two of the most dramatic moments in Daisey's story: his meeting with underage workers at Foxconn and his reporting on a man with a mangled hand that he allegedly injured at Foxconn making iPads.
In the show airing this weekend, Daisey apologizes for the misrepresentations, according to the press release.
"It was completely wrong for me to have it on your show," he is quoted as telling Glass, "and that's something I deeply regret." He also expressed his regret to "the people who are listening, the audience of 'This American Life,' who know that it is a journalism enterprise, if they feel betrayed."
This article includes reporting by msnbc.com's Becky Bratu.
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China may not be a worker's paradise, but what they are doing now is exactly what we did when this country was being built, with Irish, Chinese, and so many other immigrants that were considered inferior and kept in horrifying conditions in our country.
This article reminds me of reading "Death by China" by Peter Navarro, in which China is shown as the most despicable and terrible place on earth. Of course the total exageration and outright lies in the book are solely for the consumption of the many China haters who don't bother to learn anything that might show China in a good light.
The hysteria and paranoia about China is just another fabrication by the people who see China's growth as a danger, not to democracy, but to the imperial ambitions we have had for a very long time. WE have hundreds of military bases around the world, the Chinese, to my knowledge, have none. They are just doing what they have to do in order to have a powerful economy and influence in the world, like the United States. The only difference is that they have not yet invaded anybody or bombed a country into oblivion in order to achieve their goals.
Isn't it a wonderful world. You can't believe what's reported. You can't believe what is reported about the report. Let's face it, we went down hill when we discovered George Washington didn't chop down that cherry tree. When we found out Columbus wasn't the first one in America.
Never cared much for the show anyways.
The story needs to be redone by a different news agency. The general content of it is factual and should be taken in to consideration.
Ummm...if a company has to install anti-suicide nets to keep employees from jumping off of its buildings then it should make one question what the working conditions there are like.
Typical public radio liberal anti capitalist crap all made possibble with major funding by the American taxpayer. In this age of you tube Konys public pubic wanking journalists and . History channels et al. It's time to cut PBS loose and see if it can make more money than Say Current or OWN which both suck more than this American life could ever dream.
Having been there it was obvious that the majority of the story was fabrication...get off your duff and come on over to find out for yourself, you'll find most of the stories told about the Chinese are false propagandist lies of the American politicians (both parties) and some political ones that are very true. From what i am reading it sounds as if the Left in America is attempting to outgun Burma in supressing dissenting opinions. It is sounding as if you don't goosestep with the American Left you might end up "in the hospital" behind the Sheraton in Bejing with the Christians.
-The Vines, Don't Listen To The Radio
sounds to me like the reporter was bought off.
Apple manufactures their product in a Communist country that crushes dissenters under the tread of tanks. Please, I am sure the working conditions are terrible by most civilized standards. It is unfortunate that the awareness of the conditions required that falsehoods had to be told since that error in judgment will be used against exposing the truth. For the so called visitor to the plants who said conditions are so wonderful, what did he think they were going to show him, the truth. Please it is a Communist country were the people have no choices. Work in government supported factories at the peoples wage, I love those socialist terms, or starve. Apple makes money off the sweat of what is basically slave labor and liberals who use their products do not like that fact. I am sure in the 18th and 19th century plantations in the south claimed they took good care of the workers/slaves. Shame on Apple and shame on anyone who believes workers in a tolertarian society are not slave labor.
I've lived and worked in China for about two years. It's true that there are lots of things that could be improved in China (that's an understatement); however, until I came to China, I did not understand the pressures that come with such a large population.
I work with people - my Chinese coworkers - who compete every day for a job. Unemployment in the West is one thing, but in China (and India) with such large populations, you compete for everything.
I've interviewed Chinese for job positions and, in some cases, they are literally on the edge of their seats, nervous, wringing their hands. Part of it is because I'm a "foreigner" and I live in an area that has almost no foreigners, but also, it's the need to get a job.
This is not an easy country for ANYONE to live in.
I've come to believe that even the ecological problems were a 'choice' that had to be made. Economoic development had to be first priority above all else as a means of raising over a billion people out of poverty. The economy developed and a lot of prices have been paid, just like in the US during the 1900's.
It's important that more people leave the comforts of the US and gain first hand experience of the challenges faced by other parts of the world so that we can all better understand the issues we face.
We can't afford to have uninformed 'opinions'.
I haven't read/heard the piece that this article references, but based upon two years of 'feet on the ground', I'd say it wasn't too far off from the facts, even if journalistic protocols were violated.
I encourage you and/or your children to find a way to travel to another country for work, school, vacation or to teach English as a second language and experience the reality of other cultures.
Keep in mind that along with the jobs that got shipped to China, went many labor and ecological issues.
Many of the products that we/you buy in the US or other Western countries could not be produced at all in the US because you couldn't afford to buy them after paying for higher labor and the higher cost of environmental laws that protect our water and air.
The industries that USED to pollute the US are now in China. Plastics, industrial solvents use to clean electronic circuit boards, chemicals, resins that cause cancer...we used to read about them every day in the US news...don't hear much about it anymore...because it all shifted to China.
China has dirty air, in part, not totally, but IN PART, because the US wanted clean air and water, but still wanted her gadgets, toys and conveniences.
When you are being "GREEN" , your recycled electronics may be shipped back to China where incredibly poor people squat on floors and sort out plastic from circuit boards. Circuit boards have lead solder to connect wires and lead (not good for kids). I was an electronic technician and later a product engineer previously and I worked in manufacturing in the US, so I know about toxic hazards.
Semiconductors and SOLAR CELLS use toxic chemicals such as Arsenic, sulpheric acid, hydroflouric acid (eats away at your bones if you become contaminated) and various other chemicals. Where do you think those liquid chemicals go? Hehehe
The next time you buy new battery technology, use a rare earth metal for your headphones or hard drive or use a solar cell, know that toxic chemicals and underpaid labor created it for you.
FYI, I'd be classified as a libertarian and not a democrat. With freedom comes responsibility...toward our families, society and the world. Morality or responsibility can never be effectively legislated; it must come from your heart.
The Chinese people are good people; but the world we see on the outside is a reflection of the world as it exists on the inside. I better understand now,better than at any other time of my life, the importance of "The Golden Rule".
Do you want to see higher wages paid to Foxconn employees? Do you want to see better environmental conditions in China?
No you don't.
Higher wages in China mean higher costs for your cell phones, computers, toys and gadgets. Environmental management means higher costs of manufacturing.
If the cost of doing business in China rises and the jobs went elsewhere (pretend for a moment that they won't go to India, Pakistan, Viet Nam or Thailand and that they would come back to the US), then do you want those menial jobs?
NO, you don't.
Those jobs are dull, boring, low paid with the potential to work in Toxic environments. These are the kinds of jobs many older 'moms and dads' had. The jobs that 'went away'.
You could improve their conditions to the point that the price of their products sold in the US rises...and you won't buy them....and then they won't have a job...just like you or a friend/family member.
You could bring take those jobs away from the underpaid, abused Chinese and try to bring them back to the US, but with the cost of production of those 'commodity' products, you would not like to prices you would pay to own them.
We could bring the cost of production down in the US with increased 'automation' and the use of robots...Oooops...we don't need people to work for us, do we? The computer or robot did it for us. Too bad. No job. Can't buy the product.