Journalism as Entertainment?

Citing “numerous fabrications” in a report aired on Jan. 6 about working conditions in Chinese manufacturer Foxconn’s factories, public radio program “This American Life” has retracted the show and plans to dedicate an entire, hour-long episode to the issue Friday evening. “We've learned that Mike Daisey's story about Apple in China -- which we broadcast in January -- contained significant fabrications,” explained Ira Glass, host and executive producer of the show, in a statement online. “We're retracting the story because we can’t vouch for its truth.”

This American Life is a weekly public radio show broadcast on more than 500 stations to about 1.8 million listeners. It is produced by Chicago Public Media, and distributed by Public Radio International.

Daisey’s segment on working conditions in the factories was the most popular podcast ever from the show, with 888,000 downloads rather than the typical 750,000, the show said in a statement. The report contained numerous errors both small and large, Glass said. The number of factories Daisey visited in China was listed incorrectly, for example, as well as the number of workers he spoke with.

Daisey also claims to have met a group of workers who were poisoned on an iPhone assembly line by a chemical called n-hexane -- a bigger error, "This American Life" said. Mike Daisey nevertheless stands by his work, stating that the newscast was intended not as news or journalism but as "entertainment". “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,” Daisey wrote in a statement on his blog. “It uses a combination of fact, memoir and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity.” “What I do is not journalism,” he explained.

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This is brilliant stuff - and it is hard to believe that it comes from a Chicago based public media outlet. They say they retracted the story when they couldn't "vouch for it's truth" when the Daisey dude said it was all made up. You wonder how it is that Bill Maher hides behind his opinions as "comedy"? Just like these "journalists" hide behind entertainment as news. It also sickens one to think that the automatic belief of this these left wingers is the usual socialist pablum that any successfull company must be a bad company, and that good business necessarily means bad employee treatment. These loons won't be happy until the Apple stockholders take a bath, and the Chinese workers lose their jobs.

That'll learn 'em.