Ira Glass:
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. On this week's episode of This American Life, we will devote the entire hour to detailing the errors in "Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory."
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. That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake.
The original program1 was riveting. Daisey is a talented and engaging storyteller. Too bad it was in part a fabrication for the purpose of telling a good story.
Kudos to Ira Glass and This American Life for a full-throated, zero equivocation retraction2.
Daisey defends himself on his website:
What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism.
Rob Schmitz, the reporter who tracked down the interpreter, is American Public Media's Marketplace China correspondent, and filed his own report:
But it wasn't.
Daisey says "it's not journalism. It's theater." That's certainly true, but the "story" was put out there as truth, not fiction.
The Public Theater, where the show finally ends its run on March 18, also put out a statement:
[…]
Mike is an artist, not a journalist. Nevertheless, we wish he had been more precise with us and our audiences about what was and wasn't his personal experience in the piece.
Even in defending him, they acknowledge the deceit.
- No longer available in audio form, alas. The transcript remains "only for reference". ↩
- They blogged and did a Press Release about it, and released the audio two days early. ↩