Yahoo! News: An artist admitted Friday to taking shortcuts in crafting an often harrowing tale about Apple Inc.'s operations in China after the veracity of his one-man theatrical show was challenged by a public radio program that had based a broadcast on his work. But writer Mike Daisey said he stands by his monologue and called what he does theater, and not journalism. "It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity," Daisey said in a statement posted on his website.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Artist admits to shortcuts in show about Apple
Yahoo! News: An artist admitted Friday to taking shortcuts in crafting an often harrowing tale about Apple Inc.'s operations in China after the veracity of his one-man theatrical show was challenged by a public radio program that had based a broadcast on his work. But writer Mike Daisey said he stands by his monologue and called what he does theater, and not journalism. "It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity," Daisey said in a statement posted on his website.
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This is quite the sticky situation because it seems like there is no one person at fault here. Daisey, as an artist presenting a piece of art, had every right to present the information with a dramatic twist. Because he was commenting on real people, corporations, and situations, though, it would have been wise for him to indicate that he was doing some creative and exaggerated story-telling. Ira Glass and the team at "This American Life" would then have had no doubt as to Daisey's intentions and could have asked him separately about which sections of his piece were really true. Then again, it is reasonable to say that they should have asked him this in the first place before basing a whole piece on his show. What's really unfortunate here is that, while these pieces are bringing awareness to the factory issue, they are also detracting from the real issues because they are muddying up the truth. Suddenly the focus has become figuring out the truth instead of solving helping the people in the factories.
Well, this is a perfect example of outlining the line between art and factual information where a real company is at stake. Clarity should have been this guy's best friend, unfortunately, we are where we are. The troubling thing is that there are so many major corporations that exploit it's workers and that play with illegal practices that others ignore. It is annoying that we are focusing on the things that are fake. Probably because Apple is involved, a story is probably cranked out just based off the shock factor. I agree with Shannon when she said that "This American Life" team should have checked Daisy's material and screened some of it.
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