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[justinlee999]

Hispanics never really struck me as "White" people, I guess it's all about cultural differences.

[fqllve]

You may remember that This American Life episode on FoxConn. It was retracted; turns out a decent portion of it was invented by the guy to sell his story. http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/16/10720955-this-american-life-retracts-damning-report-on-apple-manufacturer-foxconn

"Daisey lied to me and to 'This American Life' producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast," Glass said. "That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake." 'This American Life' will devote its entire program this weekend to detailing the errors in the story," the press release said.

Ah, I'm disappointed but not surprised. Daisey is an entertainer not a journalist, but exaggerating conditions makes it harder to solve any real problems and gives people fuel for disregarding the situation completely. Still, This American Life is a good program and I'm interested to hear what all was fabricated.

[G-Flex]

Sadly, it wasn't simple exaggerations, either. He totally fabricated details and made up interactions that didn't even happen, and then lied to This American Life about it because he was afraid of what might happen. He seems to very much regret allowing them to use the story and misleading their fact-checking, but he seems to stand by the weird notion that it's acceptable as theater to get up on stage and lie to people for emotional effect.

[Capntastic]

the weird notion that it's acceptable as theater to get up on stage and lie to people for emotional effect.

That's not a weird notion. Storytellers often exaggerate or even lie, believe it or not!  His sin is that he told TAL that it was a factual account. His stance is that he lied, but only in as much as the events he claimed to have taken part in didn't happen specifically to him.  IE, those things happen, and his stories are abstraction of that. 

Further, TAL contacted him without taking due diligence on researching the story, and they admit that wholly.  They were both partially to blame for the story being construed as fact.

So yes, it's awful of Daisy, and detrimental to his cause, to say it's factual like he did.  But that doesn't make what his story is about (awful labor conditions) less important.  To him, the net gain of that burst of awareness his story inspired was worth it.  Not that it absolves him, of course, but that's his reasoning.  I'm not even going to discount that he might have had sights set on furthering his own career, either. 

There's not one single 'thing' here to blame, there's a lot of angles.

[GlyphGryph]

Hispanics never really struck me as "White" people, I guess it's all about cultural differences.

Yes, Hispanic is a cultural (and lingual) term.  It's got nothing to do with race.

At least it wasn't a white African-American, would have confused you even more I'm sure. Although I did know one of those a couple years back.

[justinlee999]

At least it wasn't a white African-American

Derp.

[G-Flex]

the weird notion that it's acceptable as theater to get up on stage and lie to people for emotional effect.

That's not a weird notion. Storytellers often exaggerate or even lie, believe it or not!  His sin is that he told TAL that it was a factual account.

But it's okay to get on stage and present a story as factual, as something that actually happened to him, and in doing so defame a company (well, two companies) by lying about them? I really can't get behind that. Yeah, embellishing a story is fine, but I've heard this guy's story, and he very clearly presents it as a factual account of stuff that happened to him, even if it is geared toward emotional effect.

There's not one single 'thing' here to blame, there's a lot of angles.

Of course. I feel like Ira Glass/TAL have come clean a lot more than Daisy has, though. Daisy has apologized, but it's also not quite the sort of apology he should be giving. He repeatedly apologizes for bringing the story to TAL, but seems totally fine with the idea of perpetrating this narrative of events that never actually happened to him. Hell, it wasn't even just "abstractions"; it was other things as well that may or may not ever actually happen, like the guards carrying guns, the dormitories containing surveillance cameras, the one worker being totally mystified by the iPad/iPhone, and other embellishments.

[Capntastic]

G-Flex, all I was taking issue with was your apparent surprise that people who do monologues or similar theater acts aren't typically expected to be held to high standards of veracity.  It was the TAL approval that gave him the sheen of truth-- if I'd seen him do his stage act at some random club I wouldn't think it to be true.  Lying to people for emotional effect in theater isn't 'a weird notion'.

As I stated, the reason it's even a big deal is that he lied to TAL.  And, again, TAL came to him asking to use his story, not the other way around.   Nowhere did I say his actions were commendable.  If you're trying to pin me for not condemning him enough, all I can say is point to my above post and remind you that I don't condone his actions, but can see what his failing is. His own personal value system places the awareness gained and over the truth.  Even getting 'caught', he's succeeded in his mission to get his story out there, for both personal and altruistic reasons.  His apology is perfectly in line with this line of thought.

It's similar in a lot of ways to the Kony 2012 thing, because both Daisy and IC value the awareness over the actual truth and specific information pertaining to their scenarios.  Of course, IC is infinitely worse for various reasons.  The key point is that they're trying to get people riled up over good causes, using bad methods. 

Basically, as bad as a dude Daisy is, his actions will probably spur some people to make better decisions.  Not that I'm taking a broken window stance on the morality of this, since he could've used the truth to gain equal or better results.  Regardless, it's up to people beyond him to use the small bit of empathy his story dredged up to look into things on their own and make the best of it.

[Truean]

http://news.yahoo.com/regulator-questions-bill-ease-capital-raising-062223184.html

....

There are disclosure regulations for businesses dealing with investors. Many of the main ones were put into place in 1933-34, right after the 1929 stock market crash.... This bill lowers even those.

And the term, "Small business," is completely misapplied and asinine here:

"The House bill had allowed fairly large companies - those with up to $1 billion in annual gross revenue - to qualify for certain key regulatory exemptions -- like an extended pass on external audits -- after their initial public offerings."

"Senate Democrats proposed lowering the threshold for the exemption to $350 million." (and from the committee note, tried to go lower, but really couldn't get traction even on the $350 million mark).

Translation:
"An extended pass on external audits." ~We trust you "small businesses" (Up to $one billion revenue/year) completely.


A.) This doesn't create jobs, especially for numerous book keepers and accountants who keep companies at least in some small sense honest.

B.) An external audit has been part of American businesses like this for decades with no ill effect.

C.) You wanna actually create jobs? Make it so ordinary people can afford to buy things, that is: be clients/customers. Jobs aren't these magic things; they happen when someone can afford to buy something or something you do from you or a business you work for. If anything is holding businesses back, it's not regulation, it's lack of people who are able to be paying customers. <--- Nobody's trying to fix this.... That's why we have a problem.

"GOP 2012, corporations are people and have free speech; you don't, so shut up." <-- Seems what they're really saying....

G-Flex, all I was taking issue with was your apparent surprise that people who do monologues or similar theater acts aren't typically expected to be held to high standards of veracity.  It was the TAL approval that gave him the sheen of truth-- if I'd seen him do his stage act at some random club I wouldn't think it to be true.  Lying to people for emotional effect in theater isn't 'a weird notion'.

As I stated, the reason it's even a big deal is that he lied to TAL.  And, again, TAL came to him asking to use his story, not the other way around.   Nowhere did I say his actions were commendable.  If you're trying to pin me for not condemning him enough, all I can say is point to my above post and remind you that I don't condone his actions, but can see what his failing is. His own personal value system places the awareness gained and over the truth.  Even getting 'caught', he's succeeded in his mission to get his story out there, for both personal and altruistic reasons.  His apology is perfectly in line with this line of thought.

It's similar in a lot of ways to the Kony 2012 thing, because both Daisy and IC value the awareness over the actual truth and specific information pertaining to their scenarios.  Of course, IC is infinitely worse for various reasons.  The key point is that they're trying to get people riled up over good causes, using bad methods. 

Basically, as bad as a dude Daisy is, his actions will probably spur some people to make better decisions.  Not that I'm taking a broken window stance on the morality of this, since he could've used the truth to gain equal or better results.  Regardless, it's up to people beyond him to use the small bit of empathy his story dredged up to look into things on their own and make the best of it.

Unfortunately, everyone's apathetic about everything. They just don't care. Not that much of an over-generalization really, either. There is an issue not that he lied, but but he lied while saying it was true. "Fiction" means you are expected to lie. "Non Fiction" means you are expected to not lie. He said it was non fiction, and sold it to a non fiction publisher as non fiction and that's the problem. Sometimes embellishment is the only way to get people to care, but where's the line between that and fraud?

[Capntastic]

Nowhere did I dispute that he lied, both about his content, and what he construed himself as, and that he shouldn't have.  I'm just trying to ensure that people don't rail so hard against Daisy that they forget that the undeniably true core of his story- That Consumerism's Led to Horrible Manufacturing Conditions in China and Other Places- shouldn't be drowned out.

[Truean]

Nowhere did I dispute that he lied, both about his content, and what he construed himself as, and that he shouldn't have.  I'm just trying to ensure that people don't rail so hard against Daisy that they forget that the undeniably true core of his story- That Consumerism's Led to Horrible Manufacturing Conditions in China and Other Places- shouldn't be drowned out.

Fair point. I'm actually perfectly ok with "ends justifies the means," in many but not all situations. If "lying satire" is what it takes to get a bunch of price obsessed tech consumers to consider that their toys are "cheap" due to slave labor, then fine.

[Capntastic]

I just keep seeing a lot of really weird contrarian arguments lately, and it's doubly odd that when I put forth a purposefully even-handed analysis of the situation, people still take it upon themselves to split hairs that I'm not as angry as I should apparently be.  I mean, this is a minor scandal compared to the huge wealth of straight up counterfactual, purposefully crafted lies being taken not just as truth, but as Gospel, that are spewed out by, say, FOX news, every single minute.  Many of them are also catalogued in this thread.  So yeah, TAL fucked up, but on their part it was an honest mistake.  Daisy fucked up by not being upfront with TAL and misconstruing himself in general, but his actions are infinitely less malicious than so many other things that the despise I feel for him is so much less than I feel for, say, Goldman Sachs or Monsanto or Alice Walton that it's negligible.

[G-Flex]

Nowhere did I dispute that he lied, both about his content, and what he construed himself as, and that he shouldn't have.  I'm just trying to ensure that people don't rail so hard against Daisy that they forget that the undeniably true core of his story- That Consumerism's Led to Horrible Manufacturing Conditions in China and Other Places- shouldn't be drowned out.

This is why I'm so mad that he lied in the first place. Complete fabrications are easy to deal with, because you just dismiss them. Things like this are harder to deal with, because you don't know how much you can believe about his experience. I heard the story, and it affected me pretty strongly, and now I have no idea how much of it even happened. I don't know how much I believe Mike Daisy, or hell, how much I believe his interpreter either. The whole thing is basically shot.

On the other hand, I'm glad TAL's retraction episode did touch upon the actual issues represented in the story; some good should come out of this, and it's nice to walk away from the situation with at least some trustworthy information.

Nowhere did I dispute that he lied, both about his content, and what he construed himself as, and that he shouldn't have.  I'm just trying to ensure that people don't rail so hard against Daisy that they forget that the undeniably true core of his story- That Consumerism's Led to Horrible Manufacturing Conditions in China and Other Places- shouldn't be drowned out.

Fair point. I'm actually perfectly ok with "ends justifies the means," in many but not all situations. If lying is what it takes to get a bunch of price obsessed tech consumers to consider that their toys are "cheap" due to slave labor, then fine.

So if lying is necessary to get people to care about the truth, you're okay with that? That's pretty ironic, especially when a major part of the problem is lack of transparency/awareness in the first place.

I also believe that in this case, the truth of the matter was sufficiently powerful that there was really no need to lie about it. There are ways to dramatize something other than making shit up.

Also: Please bear in mind your own argument here the next time you feel the need to complain about Fox News or any other organization or individual fabricating stories or not engaging in good journalism, because they're doing the exact same thing you're encouraging here: Deciding that if you feel the need to push an agenda, cause, or effect some sort of social change, that it's okay to lie in order to do it. It doesn't matter how "right" you are; when you start lying in order to promote your views, it ceases to matter how "correct" your views are, because you've effectively removed yourself from rational discussion. We both see the effects of bad journalism and misrepresentation in the media pretty much constantly, and it's pretty hypocritical to say that it's okay as long as the people doing it are the ones we agree with.

I just keep seeing a lot of really weird contrarian arguments lately, and it's doubly odd that when I put forth a purposefully even-handed analysis of the situation, people still take it upon themselves to split hairs that I'm not as angry as I should apparently be.  I mean, this is a minor scandal compared to the huge wealth of straight up counterfactual, purposefully crafted lies being taken not just as truth, but as Gospel, that are spewed out by, say, FOX news, every single minute.  Many of them are also catalogued in this thread.  So yeah, TAL fucked up, but on their part it was an honest mistake.  Daisy fucked up by not being upfront with TAL and misconstruing himself in general, but his actions are infinitely less malicious than so many other things that the despise I feel for him is so much less than I feel for, say, Goldman Sachs or Monsanto or Alice Walton that it's negligible.

Of course those other things are worse, which is why people complain about them. However, I'm a bit more personally and directly affected by this because I did not expect this to happen on TAL, and the story was pretty hard-hitting. Fox News is more of a problem by orders of magnitude, but they haven't violated my trust because I have none in them. For what it's worth, I don't really think TAL specifically violated my trust a hell of a lot; they got a bit lax with the fact-checking, but they owned up to it and rebounded pretty well and honestly. But the story certainly did.

[Truean]

.

[alway]

The story of the retraction is up: http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/460/retraction