Yeah, but...Daisey really isn't a journalist. He's a playwright and an author. He does one-man shows off Broadway. As far as I know, he's never had any training in journalism, nor has he worked as a reporter.
This is a case where I suspect that both parties were mis-interpreting the intent of the other party; This American Life does a lot of "artistic" work (e.g. nearly everything by David Sedaris, or David Rakoff), and perhaps Daisey felt that he fit into that model. Likewise, TAL seems to have felt that Daisey was venturing into journalism, even though he's clearly an amateur at it (they make skeptical statements to this effect in the original piece).
That said, I think there's a bright-line distinction between "art" and "fabrication" -- when you present your work as a documentary without disclosing it as a work of fiction -- that Daisey seems to have crossed.
What is fundamentally flawed with the state of journalism is not what Mike Daisey does. He's an actor who created a one man show.
What is flawed is that journalists continue to mistake his one man show for investigative reporting. The extent to which it is occurring borders on the deliberate.
Rob Schmitz's investigation is the journalistic equivalent to revealing that Julius Caesar could not have said:
Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren, touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.
because he did not speak Elizabethan English.
Schmitz should be able to distinguish between a news report and entertainment. He should be able to provide context for the large themes in Daisey's performance given that they coincide with his own journalistic reports for Marketplace. He could have done actual journalism, instead he conflated theater with journalism and then revealed it as theater while pretending to conduct journalism.
Ira Glass from the transcript of the original This American Life piece:
When I saw Mike Daisey perform this story on stage,
when I left the theater I had a lot of questions.
I mean, he's not a reporter, and I wondered,
did he get it right?
The journalistic failings fall on journalists. Mr. Glass knew Daisey wasn't a reporter all along.
What is fundamentally flawed with the state of journalism is not what Mike Daisey does. He's an actor who created a one man show.
What is flawed is that journalists continue to mistake his one man show for investigative reporting.
The journalistic failings fall on journalists. Ira Glass from the transcript of the original This American Life piece:
When I saw Mike Daisey perform this story on stage,
when I left the theater I had a lot of questions.
I mean, he's not a reporter, and I wondered,
did he get it right?
Rob Schmitz should be able to distinguish between a news report and entertainment. He should be able to provide context for the large themes in Daisey's performance given that they largely coincide with his own journalistic reports for Marketplace. He could have done actual journalism, instead he conflated theater with journalism and then revealed it as theater while pretending to conduct journalism.
While reading Daisey's response[1], something jumped out at me: as a defense for "embellishing the truth" he says: "What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism."
Why does that defense (from a disgraced journalist) sound familiar? Oh yeah, David Pogue, when faced with serious charges of conflict of interest: "I am not a reporter. I’ve been an opinion columnist my entire career...I try to entertain and inform."
And where did I read that? The Atlantic Wire piece[2] on Dave Pogue. And how did I find that piece? Oh yeah, Mike Daisey linked to it from his indictment[3] of David Pogue on his blog.
Summary: Daisey endorses a critique of Pogue that calls the defense of "I'm not a journalist" ridiculous, then Daisey invokes the exact same (pitiful) defense. Yechh...
For the record I support Daisey's crusade and think Pogue is a fool on this issue, but it's really irritating to find out that the highest profile critic of Apple labor conditions is both a liar and a Class-A Hypocrite. Now those who want to dismiss critiques of gadget-makers' labor practices have a great new reason to do just that. The campaign to improve working conditions for gadget makers would be better off if Daisey had stayed out of it completely; his contribution was (imo) a net setback.
The public radio broadcaster said that the segment’s creator, Mike Daisey, had fabricated key details in his report. Although Daisey did actually travel to Shenzhen and speak with Foxconn workers, he later told This American Life that he should have been more forthcoming in his work -
adding “this is theater,” he said. “Not journalism.”
What's really tragic here is that the truth in Mr. Daisey's story will get dragged down by the weight of his lies.
[disclaimer: I have never taken journalism classes but I date someone majoring in journalism in college :-)]
Disclaimer aside, I believe you comment is the whole 'moral' of the story. And were someone to write a pulitzer prize winning fictional story about a journalist who was so passionate about the topic they were reporting on they stepped into the cess pool of making up 'facts' and by doing so, lost their soul, and the thing that they were most passionate about gets dismissed and ignored. Its like a Greek tragedy except that instead of the hero dying its some noble cause that dies because of the acts of a selfish reporter.
This is why people who want to be known as journalists have to never, ever, cross that line. Sadly it has a similar mechanism to cheating on your spouse, you do it once and don't get caught and its thrilling and exciting and nouveaux so you want to do it again, and again, and again. And then you do get caught at some point and all the good that was your marriage goes "Poof!" in an instant. (not a personal experience but related by folks daily it seems).
As a literary tool it is very powerful, you can relate to the protagonist's passion, but cannot forgive their transgression.
In all honesty, what did This American Life think it was reporting? Daisey presents a one man show, surely the folks at NPR can distinguish that from investigative journalism.
Marketplace's journalism is akin to investigating the false claims in Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. That no person named "Stanislovas Lukoszas" was ever eaten alive by rats, is hardly a revelation.
It's This American Life which is unclear about where journalism begins and ends and what constitutes journalistic integrity and what constitutes muckraking.
This story shows the fundamental difference between the principles of Ira Glass and everyone at This American Life & Chicago Public Radio versus some dude that really doesn't care what brought you into this "relationship", thinks you're just stuck with him.
Well, as it turns out, people aren't really "stuck" with Mike Daisey, except for a non-refundable ticket that won't be a recurring sale. He lost all integrity and trust in his stories, regardless of how well he does tell them.
And I can assure you that the saying «There is no such thing as bad publicity» might apply to the dumb celebrities followers (with no due respect) but doesn't really apply to every field, especially when journalistic standards are expected.
My guess is that everyone knows and understands the mistake made by Mr Ira Glass and the Producers at This American Life was one of trust.
And the basic point here is, that I keep my full trust in Mr. Ira, This American Life's Producers and Chicago Public Radio, because humans can make mistakes (and in fact learn/correct/improve when they do so), but those that have principles and integrity know to recognize and correct any mistakes. So was the case here.
In regards to Mr. Mike Daisey, there's no trusting him ever again, unless he's telling unicorn stories.
Welcome to America. Standard behavior with all broadcast media. I'm not blaming NPR.. but the producers of This American Life, in their zeal of catching a top story cut corners. And now, I consider this Daisey fellow as low as Rush Limbaugh; making up crap as hes running to the bank cashing checks.
"Journalism is a method of inquiry and literary style that aims to provide a service to the public by the dissemination and analysis of news and other information."[1]
Is that not what he's doing? Is he just gratifying a need to be heard or something? I don't think so, it looks like he's attempting to perform journalism as described by this paragraph, and he falls short in some ways.
He appears to be acting as an investigative reporter. Such acts have a long history of naming and shaming people, even ones that were not previously public figures. That he writes for his own publication is not really material to the fact that he is acting as a reporter.
Yeah, it's strange. This was a person riffing on a podcast, it's not even like there was some journalism involved. Just an interesting anecdote that may or may not be true.
This is a case where I suspect that both parties were mis-interpreting the intent of the other party; This American Life does a lot of "artistic" work (e.g. nearly everything by David Sedaris, or David Rakoff), and perhaps Daisey felt that he fit into that model. Likewise, TAL seems to have felt that Daisey was venturing into journalism, even though he's clearly an amateur at it (they make skeptical statements to this effect in the original piece).
That said, I think there's a bright-line distinction between "art" and "fabrication" -- when you present your work as a documentary without disclosing it as a work of fiction -- that Daisey seems to have crossed.
reply