Comments | dynamicsymmetry: The substance of things unseen

dynamicsymmetry

The substance of things unseen

Mar 19, 2012 15:07

So a while back I was making a fairly big deal out of This American Life's broadcast of "Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory", Mike Daisey's wrenching monologue about his trip to China and the Foxconn factory where many Apple products are made. Which is now apparently either mostly or entirely untrue. Mike Daisey made it up. He made it up and then ( Read more... )

politik, thinky

Comments 5

roads_outgrown March 19 2012, 20:16:42 UTC

God, Retraction was just painful to listen to. That said, fucking right on to TAL for handling it as they did, for resisting the urge to just sweep it away.

dynamicsymmetry March 19 2012, 20:37:18 UTC

Yeah. Someone on Twitter called it something like a disgrace or a failure for journalism, and Andy Carvin was like ...No. No, this is actually how the system is supposed to work.

maccaj March 20 2012, 10:33:14 UTC

I have such mixed feelings about this, and my feelings didn't become mixed till the end of act two (when Daisey came to elaborate on his motivations ( ... )

maccaj March 20 2012, 10:34:47 UTC

Storytelling is the art of knowing how to keep an audience, and being willing to adjust the facts a bit to do so. Journalism is the art of getting an account exactly correct, and risking that said account may be dull or have less impact simply because it doesn't directly appeal to our emotional nature. A good storyteller will be able to keep an audience with minimal fact adjustment, and a good journalist can make a factual account engaging... but at the base level, they have exactly opposite priorities ( ... )

maccaj March 20 2012, 10:50:16 UTC

Oh, I know one other thing I was going to say... I think writers have to be careful with what we call "truth" and I think journalists should be careful what they call "fiction" and I don't like the idea that everything is either one or the other. Of course journalists have to be interested in truth at their jobs, and facts are paramount... but for Ira to imply that if a work of theater presents itself as factual but doesn't carry a disclaimer, that author is somehow *lying* is ridiculous. (He's allowed to be ridiculous, in his situation. I would be, too. But that doesn't change the fact that it's fucking ridiculous.) When I watch the West Wing, it feels true. A lot of it *is* true, either factually or emotionally. But I don't get to go harangue Aaron Sorkin for claiming that "Honor thy father" is the third commandment. It's a dramatic work, in a non-fiction world, using real facts to depict a fictional presidency... and some of the real facts were wrong. And if that's okay for TV writers... if it's okay to point it out but not to ( ... )