This American Life Retracts Its Damning Episode About Apple and Foxconn
“This American Life” has retracted its episode on Apple and Foxconn.
The episode detailed life at Foxconn and painted a damaging picture of life for employees.
It accused Foxconn of hiring 13-year-old employees and working them inhuman hours.
It turns out the person at the center of the center of the report, Mike Daisey, “partially fabricated” key details.
Daisey is a performance artist who had a one-man show on Apple. After seeing that show, “This American Life” producer and host Ira Glass asked him to record a modified version of the show.
In the episode, Glass said, “We have gone through his script and fact checked everything that was checkable … Overall, we checked with over a dozen people.”
“This American Life” now says Daisey “misled” the fact checkers.
It will air a full explanation on Sunday, and it will be, “separating fact from fiction, when it comes to Apple’s manufacturing practices in China.”
In the meantime, you can read a longer press release here that details much of what was wrong.
Daisey released his own statement on the matter. In short, he says, I am not a journalist and I should not have allowed my story to be presented as journalism: