ABC News, March 16

Public Radio International’s show “This American Life” announced today it will retract one of the most popular episodes in the show’s history after finding numerous falsehoods in an monologue by a prominent Apple critic, Mike Daisey.

In 2010, Daisey launched a one-man show called “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” In it, Daisey, a self-proclaimed Apple fanatic, described a dramatic journey to Shenzhen, China to better understand working conditions at the computer giant’s top manufacturer, Foxconn. While standing outside the factory gates, he claimed to have met several Foxconn workers who described horrific tales of abuse. He said he spoke with a 13-year-old who spent her days cleaning iPhone screens, a group poisoned by toxic cleaning chemicals and a man whose hand was mangled building iPads.

After a 39-minute excerpt of Daisey’s show was featured on “This American Life” in January, the podcast was downloaded a record 880,000 times. A listener named Mark Shields said he was so moved that he launched a petition drive calling for Apple to build the first “ethical” iPhone. Over 250,000 people signed and protests were planned at Apple stores around the world.

But according to a press release, Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz tracked down Daisey’s Chinese interpreter, a pivotal character in the monologue, and she said the most dramatic details of Daisey’s story never happened.

Back in January, when “This American Life” fact-checkers asked Daisey for the interpreter’s contact information, he told them he had no way to reach her.

“At that point, we should’ve killed the story,” said Ira Glass, executive producer and host of “This American Life,” in a release. “But other things Daisey told us about Apple’s operations in China checked out, and we saw no reason to doubt him. We didn’t think that he was lying to us and to audiences about the details of his story. That was a mistake.”

The retraction: if This American Life can....

I note most media retractions in Australia are buried deep in newspapers, or in a 10-15 second item at the end of TV shows. Social media may well be leading to a change.