460: Retraction
Mar 16, 2012
We've discovered that one of our most popular episodes contained numerous fabrications. This week, we detail the errors in Mike Daisey's story about visiting Foxconn, which makes iPads and other products for Apple in China. Marketplace's China correspondent Rob Schmitz discovered the fabrications.
Transcript. Press Release.
Transcript. Press Release.
Ira also talks with Mike Daisey about why he misled This American Life during the fact-checking process. And we end the show separating fact from fiction, when it comes to Apple's manufacturing practices in China.
A full transcript of this episode is available here.
- To get a sense of what really is true of Apple's working conditions in China, Ira talks to New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg. Duhigg, along with Times reporter David Barboza, wrote the newspaper's front-page investigative series in early 2012 about this subject. And while Duhigg won't tell you how to feel about Apple and its supplier factories' practices, he does lay out the options for how you could feel, in a very clear and logical way. Duhigg is also the author of The Power of Habit. (12 minutes). Here's a longer version of Ira's interview with Charles Duhigg, where he lays out more details about what we know about Apple's manufacturing operations in China. Apple's Supplier Responsibility page Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) reports:
