I’m not sure how I feel about this whole Mike Daisey / Foxconn thing.
On one hand, he totally made up his story, fabricating all but the bones. And to make things worse, he hid behind the wall of theatre – he is not a journalist, he claims, he is an actor.
But, This American Life is not strictly journalism. It’s semi-journalism for the purpose of storytelling. It is heavily edited. It is full of pauses and out-of-context statements. It comes prepackaged with mood music and sometimes precious or pretentious narration that seems highly pleased with itself. I have often listened to it and been blown away by a story, but I have never listened to it and thought “I am getting the unadulterated truth.”
So maybe there is some validity to Daisey claiming he has no journalistic requirements to fill. Maybe there’s something to him claiming that the end justifies the means, and in this case, the end was that a lot of people started poking into Apple’s production line. And to be sure, we don’t know what’s going on over there.
Daisey’s larger point – we don’t know, and we don’t want to know – is still strong. Where our stuff comes from is always a trouble spot for consumerists in America. But Apple occupies a different position. The people usually the most willing to decry the overgrowth of capitalism and its shadier practices – and here I mean fellow liberals – seem totally unwilling to think about that as it applies to their beloved iPhones, iPads or iPods.
Clearly, we have a microchip on our shoulder, and Mr. Jobs is the Apple of our blind eye.
Daisey was able to momentarily shine a light on that, and in doing so, yes, he succeeded as artist / monologist. And possibly journalist.
The revelation that it’s all a lie doesn’t bother me. I’ve lied before for the sake of storytelling; we do it every day. Hell, I work in advertising. That beer doesn’t really make you more interesting.
The problem is not one of inherent journalistic integrity, because Daisey himself does not claim he has it. The problem is not that he lied – it’s that he got caught.
Now that he’s been caught, it gives everyone an excuse to turn their blind eye back. To excuse all their self-justification and possible hypocrisies as them having been right all along. I knew there was nothing wrong with Apple, its fans can now sigh, and never question it again. As for real-life conditions in Chinese factories, we may never know with certainty; the next reports, even if they are more true and more journalistic, are likely to be summarily dismissed as further propaganda.
In the parlance of William Tell (or perhaps in this case, William Tell-All): If the aim is noble, and your arrow is notched, you better make sure you hit that apple dead on. Or else you’ll just have a lot of irritated townspeople who never trust archers again.
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