Cool, Mr. French – you’ve found a fig leaf of allegedly ethical justification that gives us all the green light to pursue our personal financial self-interests without the need to even consider the consequences inflicted on others by the dragon our engagement feeds and nurtures. I’m sure we’re all ever so grateful.

If ever there is endowed a Nobel Prize for “Creative Contributions to the Art of Rationalization”, I’m nominating ….

The question we are addressing is HOW we make the world a better place, and specifically the false claims from one Mr. Daisey that obfuscate the role of Shenzhen in China’s actual progress towards democracy, economic independence and human rights.

I suggest you are not just naïve but disingenuous in implying that we disengage from China so as to dissuade them from their imperial adventures and human rights abuses. In fact, our policy since Kissinger has been one of more-or-less continuous engagement, with constant references to human rights. China has consistently objected to our “meddling” as ill-informed about the real risks of rebellion while asserting their right to independence from western imperialism that totally debased that country in the late 19th century. Especially as our relative economic power over China is shrinking, it behooves us, if we want to claim the moral high ground, to deal with issues such as democracy, human rights, worker rights and the lot, to not manufacture such easily-falsified claims as Mr. Daisey is peddling.

It’s all well and good for you to cite Chinese abuses; I find the corruption, stifling of rights and general treatment of the citizenry as chattel to be terrible, too. I am merely saying that if we are to have any positive influence on the outcome, we will have to get a lot smarter than to believe the children’s stories and encourage the steps that ARE in the right direction. I’m not one to claim that economic development necessarily causes democratic development, but they DO seem to be more than correlated.

That said, I think you’re on to something. There is a genre that routinely distorts reality, simplifying and melodramatizing it. Only it’s not narrative nonfiction–see Katherine Boo’s book on Indian slum dwellers for the most recent counter-example–it’s Hollywood filmmaking.

While we’re talking about facts, are you sure?

Shakespeare would never have recognized the fact/fiction distinction as you’ve put it here. History in Early Modernity was hortative in precisely the sense you’re trying to avoid; a Shakespeare history play is basically the worst example you could use.

But I totally understand, insofar as that distortion of well known facts of literary history is just a means to the end of the important point you’re making about journalistic integrity.

Mussolini made the trains run on time.

Your wife’s family’s good fortune comes at the price of complicity on the part of all of us in the West in the entrenchment and empowerment of the Red regime that oppresses all the people of China, and finances the Red adventures in Tibet and Sudan and Syria and …. But so what – as long as we all get our 30 Pieces of Silver, who gives a ….?

if newspapers or journalists dont bother getting basic statements correct then I fail to see what their purpose is.

But they were warned by Apple and the ease with which Rob Schmitz found the translator: typed Cathy, translator and the place into Google and called the first number listed. Not high quality fact checking done by the producer for TAL.

This American Life admitted its story on the working conditions of Apple factories in China based on playwright Mike Daisey’s ‘reporting’ contained a number of inaccurate claims.

Yet there doesn’t seem to be much question that some of Apple’s factories have horrid working conditions. And some might say Daisey was more successful than many in the traditional media in getting the word out about this problem.

The Stop Kony campaign basically forced the media to do stories about African warlord Joseph Kony through a brilliant viral video on the web. Ignoring for the moment the weird behavior of film-maker Jason Russell, the Kony 2012 campaign arguably had many more inaccuracies and dangerously misleading statements than did Daisey’s characterization of Apple’s manufacturing plants in China.

Both Daisey and Russell have tried to justify their ‘distortions’ as in the service of a greater good — story telling. This is on the increase as social media, new media, drive the narrative — and as news organizations depend upon second or third-hand ‘story telling’ for sourcing.

It’s great when the media admits it got snookered, though this usually ends up with earnest and aghast journalists skewering somebody else in order to demonstrate integrity.

What is probably more needed is a distinct and precise definition of what constitutes “journalism” as opposed to “story telling” as we move toward a new era of crowd-sourced reporting.

Tom Paulson, host of Humanosphere.org (Reuters wouldn’t let me sign in with my name …)

You can find an example of bad behavior by any group. I read a book which uses the sadism of a single Jewish guard in a transit camp after WWII as an ex post facto way of diminishing systematic cruelty toward Jews because anyone can do it. That’s extreme but hate Catholics? Haven’t they been hiding pederasts? Running an abuse ring? African-Americans are over-represented in prison, so pick a story of one and make it into an indictment of all blacks as criminal thugs. Hate WASPs? Lots of examples you can turn into a story.

Ends justify the means. Really?

My take is that he loves having a story that sells. He has an audience. That he believes his story isn’t different from an Aryan Nation guy who believes his story because all believers believe. It boils down to this: do you tell the truth? If you don’t, you are a liar. And in this case, as in many, a liar who thrives on the attention the lies get you.

Aside from not catching the thrust of this excellent article, you are woefully stuck in some alternate reality story about the Chinese government.

I personally would nominate the Khmer Rouge, by estimates responsible for genocide that killed maybe 1/5 of Cambodia’s population— interestingly, a story told by the most famous monologuist of my generation. (Yes, theater CAN tell truths better when it is not self-aggrandizing lying.) Now THERE’s a world-class, murderous regime.

More to the point, this regime descends from the branch that overthrew Mao’s wife. My wife’s relatives, who suffered greatly under the dogmatic programs of the past, have, since about 1980 when China opened up to capitalist notions, seen a tremendous improvement in their living conditions, thanks in part to the economic development that you call for shutting down.

The guy wanted to talk about two things: attitudes toward homosexuals and multi-player videogames. It was appalling.

When I confronted him after about it, he arrogantly informed me that he had no interest in insiders. He had interviewed some homeless people and they had told him everything he needed to know.

On other occasions I tried to correct grossly false international reportage. Each time I was stonewalled. Nobody wanted to know. Nobody cared.

So I’m not surprised. My experience so far is that on EVERY international story that I was near, the major media didn’t just get it wrong – they either swallowed obvious propaganda whole – or they simply made it up. Not one story had any resemblance to the most basic facts on the ground.

So I’m not surprised at Daisey. What I’m surprised at is that Ira Glass had the integrity to run a retraction. However, I strongly suspect that retraction ran for one reason – Apple is big enough and important enough – INSIDE America.

I have no problem with someone being selective, i have no problem with fiction bearing little or no relation to fact. However, I do think journalists should fact check and should not fabricate stories. Call me old-fashioned

And this is *art*. Period. It’s supposed to make you think. And if it makes people think about where their products come from, and have a discussion about it, then it did the job. It’s not about what side of the issue you come down on. Frankly, we eat, drink, and use things that are obtained under appalling conditions all the time but we don’t stop to think about it. Who thinks of a slaughterhouse when they’re eating a steak? Child labor when they buy a cotton tshirt? People living in barracks apart from their family when they buy an iPad? He’s saying we should. That’s all. And if you disagree? That’s art. You can move along and use your iPad.