This American Life:
Regrettably, we have discovered that one of our most popular episodes was partially fabricated. This week, we devote the entire hour to detailing the errors in “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,” Mike Daisey’s story about visiting Foxconn, an Apple supplier factory in China.
The episode itself isn’t available yet, but it should be available this evening. However the summary alone is pretty upsetting. Update: Andy Baio has a cached copy of TAL’s textual retraction, which contains some of the details on the fabrications at hand.
Recall that Daisey is also the author of a one-man play The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, also based on his “experiences” in China.
Something about Daisey’s work and attitude on this topic never really sat right with me — I could never quite put it into words, and honestly just dismissed it as fanboyism on my part. However, recall that the concurrent Foxconn suicides imbroglio was also quite a bit less shocking than it was at first brush.
I think Merlin said it best though:
Mmmm…investigative performance non-journalism. What could possibly go wrong?