So, I listened to it and it was a pretty good story. There's actually a rather meaty issue here. A different NPR program (maybe *Fresh Air*?) did a story a couple of months ago about a fact-checking process for a story in which it was not itself involved. Maybe it was for the Nation, not sure. The main part of the story was about a teenage who committed suicide by jumping off a building in Las Vegas. One of the snags the fact-checker hit was the number of strip clubs in Las Vegas at the time. The discrepancy was one the order of one or two, and I tended to agree with the writer that this was a small difference and not important because it was tangential to the main story line.
However the liked the sound of fourteen in the sentence better than thirteen, and he was pretty sure it was true even if he couldn't prove how many had been listed in the Las Vegas phone book in 2006. Now we're in a grey area, because "sounds better" is dangerous territory. But if you really can't tell either way, and the story isn't actually about strip clubs, would you kill the story over this? I wouldn't. And by the way, since we're talking about fact-checking, I have not gone back to make sure the discrepancy was 14 vs 13 rather than 26 vs 27. But the gist of the above is correct, for sure. Where the writer lost me was when he changed the time that someone else did something, because it fit his dramatic framework better. I think it had to do with a woman who was from someplace in the South but had actually been in Las Vegas for a while, whereas in his story he had her as newly-arrived. This was not a mistake -- he just thought it sounded better. Sounded better is dangerous territory. I don't actually see what relevance her time in Vegas would have had in this instance, but it possibly could and it's more consequential than 13 vs 14. So. Daisey claims to have talked to a girl who was thirteen, who was with a group of her friends. Apparently he decided that probably she was not the youngest, and there was probably a 12-year-old there. Nuh-uh, even if he was telling the truth about the 13yo, which Ira Glass wound up questioning. But even assuming he was, we're talking about underage workers here, which is a big deal in China as well as in the US. You can't just say one of them was probably 12. You also can't just say, that guy with the damaged hands, I bet he got hurt in an Apple factory, or that you met people who had been poisoned because you think the poisonings were important. That exposure happened a thousand miles away and that's a pretty big discrepancy. You can't just assert that more exposure to toxic chemicals has happened in the factory that you happened to visit unless gee you can prove that, because even in China exposing workers to toxic chemicals is a big deal. You do have to select your facts if you are making a presentation. For instance, I want to cite, tonight, a newspaper article about maybe 17 companies being sued on maybe 27 charges. Since what I am writing isn't about the lawsuit but just uses it as an example, I think I'll probably get all the company names in but only mention the two or three most important charges, and I think that's ok as long as I'm providing a link to the original documents for anyone who really cares to go read up on all the detail if they want to. But in this case my point is: privacy problems exist in mobile applications, here is a lawsuit that was filed over privacy problems against companies x y and z, and also a b and c, etc. I think what Daisey did would be more like saying well these people got sued for supposedly doing this, and oh yeah I saw them do it in another context, so what the lawsuit said must be true. When what he saw really was just somebody playing Angry Birds on an iPhone. In other words, I sympathize with Daisey's desire to make people care about those workers in China, but I think the truth he had to work with would have served his purposes quite well without the exaggeration, and now he has caused people to question whether conditions really are as bad as they really are. Because people can been exposed to toxic chemicals. Just not there. And underage workers do exist, but it's *not* routine. And nobody is standing at the gate with a gun. For all the right reasons he hurt the people he was trying to help. And while there's a grey area he was well past it and into the land of does not exist. And yeah, Jerry is right, the issue totally is truth vs truthiness. On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dana <dana.tier...@gmail.com> wrote: > yeah nothing there about insulting word choices, lol... > > > On Sat, Mar 17, 2012 at 4:00 PM, Eric Roberts < > ow...@threeravensconsulting.com> wrote: > >> >> At least he apologized right away when he was confronted instead of >> dragging >> it on for day before realizing his wallet was hemorrhaging... >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Dana [mailto:dana.tier...@gmail.com] >> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2012 9:08 PM >> To: cf-community >> Subject: Re: Liar Liar Pants on Fire.... >> >> >> yep, heard about that on NPR news earlier. Apparently the author said he >> shouldn't have done it because This American Life is more journalistic >> that >> theatric. Gee, ya think? I haven't looked at the specifics, but it seems >> to >> me that even in theater, if you are making shocking allegations about >> specific people or companies, it might fall into the category of this >> little >> thing they call slander. I mean, I know This American Life often runs >> stories about events in people's lives rather than broader social events, >> but still. They are presented as true. It's disappointing to hear about >> this >> kind of thing, because if I wanted a show that just made stuff up I >> already have quite a selection to choose from. >> >> On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Judah McAuley <ju...@wiredotter.com> >> wrote: >> >> > >> > Yeah, presenting performance art as journalism is probably not the >> > best idea. >> > >> > On Fri, Mar 16, 2012 at 2:14 PM, Cameron Childress >> > <camer...@gmail.com> >> > wrote: >> > > >> > > "This American Life has retracted its episode about working >> > > conditions at Foxconn. Apple challenged the veracity of the >> > > reporting in the piece when if first ran in January, and in an >> > > episode set to air later today, the radio show will confirm that >> > > Mike Daisey made up some of the most >> > shocking >> > > facts in his story." >> > > >> > > >> > http://gizmodo.com/5893998/this-american-lifes-damning-foxconn-report- >> > was-mostly-made-up >> > > >> > > Oops... >> > > >> > > ... >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > >> > >> >> >> >> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:348709 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
