In a new blog post, besmirched playwright Mike Daisey apologizes for the methods behind his controversial monologue about Foxconn's iPad factories, and says that "when I said onstage that I had personally experienced things I in fact did not, I failed to honor the contract I'd established with my audiences over many years." Daisey adds that "in doing so, I not only violated their trust, I also made worse art." Daisey was pelted by the media after This American Life retracted an episode that was partially based on Daisey's monologue, which has been gutted by fact-checkers that found his claims about interviewing Foxconn workers in China dubio …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The furor over performance artist Mike Daisey's misrepresentation of facts in an episode of This American Life has led to a retraction from TAL and a back-and-forth between all parties involved - but one individual that's standing by Daisey is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. In an interview with CNET today, Woz stated that he thought Daisey's work was a positive force that had steered the public conversation in the right direction, comparing it to informative political satire like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show. "I think his monologue has influenced Apple to take steps in that direction the best they can," Wozniak said of Daisey. "Bec …

Read the full story at The Verge.

The row over Mike Daisey's factually suspect monologue that was aired and then retracted in an episode of This American Life is quickly turning into a game of position taking and verbal sparring - Daisey claims in a new blog post that This American Life took his comments in the "retraction" episode out of context with skillful editing, and that "there is nothing in this controversy that contests the facts in my work about the nature of Chinese manufacturing." Daisey says that "in particular the segment with me is excruciating - four hours of grilling edited down to fifteen minutes." And despite telling his audience on Friday that he had revis …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This American Life made waves this morning when it announced it was retracting its episode about Foxconn's factories because performance artist Mike Daisey misrepresented several facts to the program. The announcement seems to have started a chain reaction, with the New York Times removing a paragraph from an opinion piece Daisey wrote after the passing of Steve Jobs last year. Entitled "Against Nostalgia," the piece originally contained references to Daisey meeting a man whose hand had been mangled while manufacturing iPads - an encounter that is now understood to have been completely fabricated. The New York Times has appended the article …

Read the full story at The Verge.

We've received an early transcript of the episode of This American Life which will air this evening at 8:00PM ET entitled "Retraction." The episode features Mike Daisey, whose previous appearance on TAL was a dramatic monologue he has been performing since 2010 about workers at the Chinese factory which produces, among many other things, Apple products. Mike has gained a lot of attention for his work which has in turn brought much attention to the plight of the Chinese workers who toil to produce electronics. However, as this new episode makes clear, not everything Mike Daisey said in his performance was technically or even, in some instance …

Read the full story at The Verge.

This American Life has retracted an episode that focused on working conditions inside a Foxconn iPad factory, calling the source material "partially fabricated." The episode - the most popular in TAL history with nearly a million streams - was partially based on the work of artist Mike Daisey, who apparently lied to fact-checkers about his experiences visiting Foxconn's facility. Some of the lies were discovered during an interview with Daisey's Chinese translator, who disputed the facts presented in his show and on the air.

A new episode of This American Life detailing the issues and what happened airs later today, with an MP3 of the broad …

Read the full story at The Verge.