This American Life retracts hugely popular episode on Apple and China:
“I’m not going to say that I didn’t take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard,” Daisey says on the upcoming “Retraction” episode, according to TAL. “My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it’s not journalism. It’s theater.”
(Via arstechnica.com)
Translation: I made my entire name on the back of a massive exaggeration, thus exploiting the people of China at the cost of Apple to build a reputation for myself as a hero. But you should still take me seriously and hate Apple, because while most of what I say about them is a load of crap, they do make products in China, so, you know, they must be guilty of SOMETHING.
Kudos for This American Life for taking responsibility for putting this charlatan on the air without proper fact checking.
If you have to make stuff up to make your argument, then you don’t really have a strong argument. If you care more about being the center of attention than you do about your cause, then you’re serving yourself, not the cause.
The truth about Chinese labor is far from simple. Trying to reduce it to black hat/white hat, one evil massive corporation vs. the poor, exploited workers of a distant land is great for getting liberal-minded folks to jump on your bandwagon without thinking too hard, but once you get exposed for oversimplification, you lose their trust, and the entire cause gets lost in murky emotion. They feel duped, and thus are far less likely to trust others who make an honest case about what can realistically be done.
Nice going, loser.
