Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory (This American Life)

[Larry]

Let's all give a hand to Michael Moore, who made bull****, fabricated documentaries like this popular. Here's to all those who think it's OK to lie to push their agenda. :finger:

---------- Post added March-16th-2012 at 07:41 PM ----------

It's more than just his word against the translator. And even if it wasn't, what does the fact that Daisey tried to prevent any contact with her tell you? :doh:

Oh, I think the fact that he seems to have admitted that he made things up to be pretty conclusive.

[Mad Mike]

Oh, I think the fact that he seems to have admitted that he made things up to be pretty conclusive.

Then why the comment about not trusting the translator?

[AsburySkinsFan]

Ugh...what a shame.

Even if he fabricated minor portions of his story everything will now be cast in doubt.

:doh:

What a way to give the upper hand back to the corporations in their abuse of their employees.

[AsburySkinsFan]

A not so flattering piece on the fiasco. Not surprisingly Mike has been totally silent on facebook for a week or more now. Before I left for Guatemala his activity was fading, and then just disappeared I was wondering why until I heard about this. It really is a shame that he fabricated some of these accounts when so much of the things that he made up aren't the real gut of the matter, but since part was made up it will cast doubt on all of it....just a shame that he didn't think about the long term consequences.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/17/how-mike-daisey-s-zeal-got-the-best-of-him.html

Mike Daisey, a rising star in the theater world, was brought to his knees Friday after it turned out that much of his show, The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, was a work of fiction.

For six months, the show has been playing at the Public Theater, where it earned rave reviews from nearly every critic that counts, and was extended three times because of enormous ticket sales.

The piece is a monologue in which Daisey tells the story of going to visit Apple’s factories in China and discovers workers toiling in horrid conditions. The show helped bring public attention to labor practices abroad, and turned up the heat on an American company with a technology fanbase so religiously devoted, few dared suggest anything could possibly be wrong with it.

But it turns out that many of the stories he told were not exactly true—or that at the very least, much of what he described he did not apparently witness first-hand.

On Friday, This American Life, the popular radio show that had recently given an entire episode to Daisey, announced they’d discovered numerous problems with the monologist’s account of things.

For example, Daisey clamed to have met a man who’d lost part of his hand in a metal press while making the iPad, only to lose his job because he could no longer work at breakneck speed. Yet This American Life couldn't find any independent confirmation of the meeting.

Daisey also claimed to have spoken with a 13-year-old girl outside the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen who alleged that lots of teenagers worked there, and that no one ever bothered to check their IDs. Yet a translator working with Daisey during his visit had no recollection of this conversation. The translator said that she’d been at Daisey’s side virtually the entire time he was there.

By Friday night, the Public Theater had taken the unusual step of contacting the entire board of trustees in an attempt to minimize the embarrassment.

The organization was measured in its response, saying that while Daisey is an artist whose work should not be held to the conventional standards of journalism, they “nevertheless … wish he had been more precise with us and our audience about what was and wasn’t his personal experience in the piece.”

To his friends, the whole episode was particularly disappointing because the broad strokes of his piece appear to be largely true: the conditions in these factories are terrible. Lots of people have died there. Others have been disfigured.

Last month, The New York Times ran a 5,500-word front-page article about the conditions endured by Chinese workers, and nothing in it deviated considerably from the version of things Daisey had been presenting for the last six months.

So why did Daisey choose to embellish so many things? Why not just stick to describing what he actually saw?

According to one friend, his messianic zeal took over.

“One of his weaknesses is his sanctimoniousness,” says this person, who wished to remain anonymous. “That's true with most artists. Most playwrights don't like to see other people's plays, most writers are not kind of about other people's writing. Mike has made himself an easy target because he can't keep his mouth shut. He got really excited about the press. He didn't think what the consequences would be of writing an op-ed piece in The New York Times. He didn’t think about what it would mean to be quoted constantly about Apple. He just kept going.”

Furthermore, Daisey’s theater pieces are on some level agitprop, where there’s almost always a component of manipulating facts to sell a particular point of view. In the latest episode of This American Life, which is devoted to the controversy, he tries to put a brighter spin on this when asked if he considered the story about meeting poisoned workers a lie.

“I wouldn't express it that way," Daisey said. "I would say that I wanted to tell a story that captured the totality of my trip, and so when I was building the scene of that meeting, I wanted to have the voice of this thing that had been happening, that everyone had been talking about.”

“Does it matter if these things that you describe in the play didn’t happen?” Glass asked.

“Yeah, I think the truth always matters," Daisey responded. "I think the truth is tremendously important. I don’t live in a subjective universe where everything is up for grabs. I really do believe that stories should be subordinate to the truth.”

This is a question about which Daisey is clearly ambivalent. In 2006, he did a monologue called "Truth," in which he discussed fabulists like JT LeRoy, Stephen Glass, and James Frey. One thing he admits to the audience during the course of the show? A shared tendency with his subjects toward embellishing things.

[Dan T.]

I find it funny that Mad Mike curses Michael Moore in this thread. As if in the history of the world Michael Moore invented propaganda.

[mjah]

Then why the comment about not trusting the translator?

Because it's a valid comment. It's certainly a thought I had had as well. The translator seems very honest by comparison, but her word may not be infallible.

Not that it would matter for Daisy's sake in this case. But it's something to think about: her take on a given anecdote could be inaccurate. :whoknows:

[DjTj]

That said, I have to confess that I'm not certain that I'd take the word of a translator who I assume works for the Chinese government's "what do we want foreigners to see" department, either.

From what I can tell, your assumption is probably incorrect.

The translator, Cathy Lee, appears to work for a small company:

Cathy Lee

Seven-year experience in business interpretation and translation and consulting. Familiar with different industries including international trading, finance, real estate, electronics（electronic components, chips, PCB, GPS, RFID, VFD, LED, e-cigarettes routers, monitors, security products etc.), consumer goods (furniture, clothes, jewelry,cosmetics etc.), molding,engineering, landscape designing etc.

Available to travel to Hong Kong, Macau, Guangzhou, Dongguan, Zhuhai, Huizhou, Shantou, Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and other cities.

http://www.shenzhenhelper.com/interpreter.html

[shk75]

From what I can tell, your assumption is probably incorrect.

The translator, Cathy Lee, appears to work for a small company: http://www.shenzhenhelper.com/interpreter.html

This is why I love NPR. They broadcast something that was untrue and instead of mentioning a small blurb at the end of a show they dedicate a whole hour to it. Sometimes journalists make mistakes and that is OK. What is not OK is hiding the truth from the public and NPR did not do this. I only wish other news organizations took their mistakes as seriously.

[skinsmarydu]

We watch Bill Maher every week and saw the episode, loved the interview, yada yada. Found the discrepancies (honestly, can't remember where) only 2-3 days later. I was hoping his piece wasn't false, because it puts a name like Apple to the faces of people who work for practically nothing to make **** we pay big $$ for. ESPN had a piece years ago called "The Sneaker Wars" (I think that's the name), and I will NEVER purchase another Nike product, no matter how much I like it. Nike only allowed ESPN limited access to their plant, while Reebok gave full access, not that they are innocent in any of this. Workers made about $4 a month, slept on little mats, and used Bunsen burners to cook their food.

And we think we need their products, "and the beat goes on...."

[AsburySkinsFan]

We watch Bill Maher every week and saw the episode, loved the interview, yada yada. Found the discrepancies (honestly, can't remember where) only 2-3 days later. I was hoping his piece wasn't false, because it puts a name like Apple to the faces of people who work for practically nothing to make **** we pay big $$ for. ESPN had a piece years ago called "The Sneaker Wars" (I think that's the name), and I will NEVER purchase another Nike product, no matter how much I like it. Nike only allowed ESPN limited access to their plant, while Reebok gave full access, not that they are innocent in any of this. Workers made about $4 a month, slept on little mats, and used Bunsen burners to cook their food.

And we think we need their products, "and the beat goes on...."

The worst thing about it is that it isn't that the piece is false, he did go and he did see 95% of what he said, but it is the 5% that he made up that will be focused upon by his critics, and for what it's worth rightfully so. But, what is most likely to happen is that as his critics focus upon the 5% the defenders of the tech industry will use the 5% to distract from the 95%. So far the only parts that I've heard that were fabricated are the teen workers and the worker who was disfigured, granted those aren't things you just make up, the rest seems to be true...or at least isn't being disputed.

[Dan T.]

What are the responsibilities of Apple and other manufacturers seeking to keep costs down and stay competitive?

What is the responsibility of Foxcomm and other such foreign manufacturers who are competing for contracts to produce Western goods?

What is the responsibility of the Chinese government under whose laws these workers are employed?

And what are our responsibilities as consumers? Are we to research and approve of the manufacturing process of every item we buy, along with the labor laws of the countries in which they are produced? It's enough for me to swear off consumerism altogether. Almost.

[AsburySkinsFan]

What are the responsibilities of Apple and other manufacturers seeking to keep costs down and stay competitive?

What is the responsibility of Foxcomm and other such foreign manufacturers who are competing for contracts to produce Western goods?

What is the responsibility of the Chinese government under whose laws these workers are employed?

And what are our responsibilities as consumers? Are we to research and approve of the manufacturing process of every item we buy, along with the labor laws of the countries in which they are produced?

Too often anymore the answer to these question is simply that the responsibility of these companies is to put the product out in the manner that provides them with the highest possible profit margin....plain and simple, and the very fact that these supply chains are in place the way they are and for as long as they have been is just proof that the front side companies (Apple, HP, Dell, et al) want their public image to be one thing while they are hiding the depravity of their supply chains. There are some who will look at the way these products come to market and call it a virtue, but those cold blooded vipers are looking only at the financial benefit and ignoring the human cost.

For me, I believe the front side companies have a responsibility to ensure that their supply chains meet some pretty universally recognized labor standards. One of the reasons that Apple is so often targeted in this conversation is because their products are marketed toward the hippster generation which in many cases is much more socially and globally aware and more prone to move against companies that don't produce humanely, as such one of their core demographic groups is at risk of being turned against them. So for Apple at least, it makes economic sense to ensure that these things happen.

As for companies like Foxconn I think the same applies, but when it comes to China obviously there aren't the same standards at work, as such I believe that it is the responsibility of the front side companies to hold their supply chain companies to account for the environments where their products are made.

As consumers I believe it is our responsibility to hold the front side companies to account when we find out that they are not doing their due diligence with their supply chains, which means grass roots boycotts, public shaming through the media (social or otherwise).

It's enough for me to swear off consumerism altogether. Almost.

I am a major critic of consumerism and the effect that it has had upon our society and the world at large. You'll find no fan here.

[Dan T.]

Well, what are "pretty universally recognized labor standards"? China is a world partner in trade. Have you sworn off any product manufactured in China?

[AsburySkinsFan]

Well, what are "pretty universally recognized labor standards"? China is a world partner in trade. Have you sworn off any product manufactured in China?

Pretty hard to do since 95% of everything is made there. What are universally recognized labor standards? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that a standard 40 hour American work week is going to fly in China or many parts of the world, but the right to form a union goes a long way in raising the working standards. I think one thing is pretty clear though, when your company is forced to install catch nets around your buildings because your workers would rather kill themselves by jumping off your building than go on working for your company then the working standards need to be addressed.

[DjTj]

Pretty hard to do since 95% of everything is made there. What are universally recognized labor standards? I don't think anyone is under the illusion that a standard 40 hour American work week is going to fly in China or many parts of the world, but the right to form a union goes a long way in raising the working standards. I think one thing is pretty clear though, when your company is forced to install catch nets around your buildings because your workers would rather kill themselves by jumping off your building than go on working for your company then the working standards need to be addressed.

Actually, the suicide rate for FoxConn employees is actually lower than the suicide rate for the US population as a whole, and much lower than the rate in China.

Steve Jobs, chief executive of Apple, said that the suicide rate at the Chinese factory – where 12 of the company's 400,000 employees have killed themselves this year – was lower than the overall suicide rate for the United States.

According to the World Health Organisation, the average annual suicide rate in the United States is 11.1 people per 100,000 of the population. The most recent statistics available date from 2005.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/7796546/Foxconn-suicide-rate-is-lower-than-in-the-US-says-Apples-Steve-Jobs.html

So working at FoxConn actually decreases your risk of suicide.

https://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/media-gets-its-facts-wrong-working-at-foxconn-significantly-cuts-suicide-risk/1356

Maybe we should place nets around all buildings in the United States.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Actually, the suicide rate for FoxConn employees is actually lower than the suicide rate for the US population as a whole, and much lower than the rate in China. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/7796546/Foxconn-suicide-rate-is-lower-than-in-the-US-says-Apples-Steve-Jobs.html

So working at FoxConn actually decreases your risk of suicide.

https://www.zdnet.com/blog/foremski/media-gets-its-facts-wrong-working-at-foxconn-significantly-cuts-suicide-risk/1356

Maybe we should place nets around all buildings in the United States.

You'll forgive me if I don't necessarily believe the numbers provided by Foxconn or the Chinese gov't.

[DjTj]

You'll forgive me if I don't necessarily believe the numbers provided by Foxconn or the Chinese gov't.

You are forgiven.

But when you make judgments based on your own personal biases rather than actual facts, you end up discrediting your cause. Mike Daisey has learned that lesson the hard way.

[AsburySkinsFan]

You are forgiven.

But when you make judgments based on your own personal biases rather than actual facts, you end up discrediting your cause. Mike Daisey has learned that lesson the hard way.

You show me what "facts" I can trust on this issue and I'll be more than happy to base my judgments upon those, until then all we have are the numbers given to Apple from Foxconn which Jobs has given to the world, yet those numbers are not independently verifiable because Foxconn won't allow outside auditing and Apple has for years held less than stringent audits of Foxconn and its suppliers and then kept the findings of those audits confidential. From where I sit that says they have something to hide.

[DjTj]

You show me what "facts" I can trust on this issue and I'll be more than happy to base my judgments upon those, until then all we have are the numbers given to Apple from Foxconn which Jobs has given to the world, yet those numbers are not independently verifiable because Foxconn won't allow outside auditing and Apple has for years held less than stringent audits of Foxconn and its suppliers and then kept the findings of those audits confidential. From where I sit that says they have something to hide.

Everyone has something to hide. Especially large technology companies who have a reputation for secrecy. But you can't just say "they have something to hide" and assume the worst. What exactly are you accusing Apple and FoxConn of doing? Do you think there are hundreds of suicides they have somehow covered up? Are working conditions significantly worse than what has been reported by the New York Times and others?

You're asking for facts, but you seem very willing to substitute the worst when you don't get the facts that you want.

There is an audit ongoing right now: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-13/apple-says-fair-labor-association-will-inspect-suppliers-including-foxconn.html

There were many stories, from many different journalists about the suicides: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704026204575267603576594936.html http://www.economist.com/node/16231588

China openly reports that it has one of the highest suicide rates in the world: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2011-09/08/c_131117301.htm

And FoxConn is actually based in a country with a free press, in Taiwan, with plenty of aggressive reporting: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/biz/archives/2011/07/21/2003508723

Working conditions in China are tough, and we should support efforts to make them better, but basing your advocacy on gut feelings and (in the case of Mr. Daisey) outright lies isn't going to get people to stop buying iPads.

[AsburySkinsFan]

The audits of Foxconn have awlays been a joke because they always knew the inspections were coming prior to the inspections, the accountability is laughable. What's more is you certainly can assume that things are worse than they are letting on, because if they weren't they wouldn't have installed suicide prevention nets. Unless those nets are common in China. It's like this, when companies are forced to reveal problems and they do so suspiciously and without transperancy it is right to suspect that they are hiding something...especially when they conintually rebuff efforts to make more transparent the accountability.

BTW, the "outright lies" you keep bringing up are but two accounts of one on one interactions, no one disputes the living quarters, no one disputes the poisonings, no one disputes the horrid working conditions, no one disputes the fact that these workers are treated like chattle. The only thing I have seen disputed is the account that Mike met a disfigured man, and an underage worker. No one is disputin the veracity of the remainder of his story...not even the translator. So keep harping on the 5% we'll keep pointing to the 95% you are keen to ignore.

[DjTj]

The audits of Foxconn have awlays been a joke because they always knew the inspections were coming prior to the inspections, the accountability is laughable. What's more is you certainly can assume that things are worse than they are letting on, because if they weren't they wouldn't have installed suicide prevention nets. Unless those nets are common in China. It's like this, when companies are forced to reveal problems and they do so suspiciously and without transperancy it is right to suspect that they are hiding something...especially when they conintually rebuff efforts to make more transparent the accountability.

BTW, the "outright lies" you keep bringing up are but two accounts of one on one interactions, no one disputes the living quarters, no one disputes the poisonings, no one disputes the horrid working conditions, no one disputes the fact that these workers are treated like chattle. The only thing I have seen disputed is the account that Mike met a disfigured man, and an underage worker. No one is disputin the veracity of the remainder of his story...not even the translator. So keep harping on the 5% we'll keep pointing to the 95% you are keen to ignore.

I've tried to take a kind of neutral stance in pointing out your obvious biases, but you seem to want an opponent to argue against, so I can provide that for you.

From the This American Life transcript, Mike Daisey's outright lies include:

• There are no armed guards at FoxConn's factories
  
• He did not meet underage workers
  
• He did not meet workers who were poisoned
  
• He did not meet a man whose hand was injured at FoxConn
  
• There are no cameras in FoxConn dorm rooms
  

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction

There were suicides. Workers live in cramped dorms. They work a lot of overtime. There have been accidents. All of those are facts.

But it's not slavery. Chinese workers are choosing to do this, and more and more people seem to want to work in these factories. It's not American standards, but it is a continually improving situation over where China was twenty years ago, or ten years ago, or two years ago.

It sounds really unpleasant. I do not think that you would find any factory in America where you would find those same conditions and you would not find any Americans who would tolerate those conditions. That being said, I think that China is a little bit different and that the expectations, particularly as a developing nation of workers, are a little bit different. I don’t think holding them to American standards is precisely the right way to look at the situation.

And the workers are slowly becoming empowered. They are organizing, going on strikes, and getting pay raises and better conditions: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/business/global/09labor.html

And in that context, our consumerism is actually helping the Chinese worker by putting more money in his pocket. This guy probably presents the argument better than I can:

It is precisely because Apple manufactures in China that conditions for manufacturing workers in China are getting better. Better at a rate never before seen in human history. And if we were to be realistic about this, instead of spouting nonsense, then we would recognise this basic fact.

And it is that last which is the most important fact about it all. Far from a boycott of Apple products being the best way to better conditions at the manufacturing plants it is the purchase of products from such plants which is, as it has been for the past few decades, making China a richer and better place.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/01/29/the-apple-boycott-people-are-spouting-nonsense-about-chinese-manufacturing/

It's about context.