Just listened to the entire broadcast of Ira Glass' mea culpa and then went to their website and downloaded the transcript. I'm sure I'm not the only person who was reminded of another "creative" journalist who invented stories and sold them as truth (Stephen Glass of The New Republic). Ira Glass' probing questions of Mike Daisey reminded me of the scenes in the movie Shattered Glass when editor Chuck Lane asks Stephen Glass question after question trying to get to the truth of his stories. It was excruciating to watch, just as Ira Glass' interview with Daisey was excruciating to listen to.
While I appreciate This American Life's admission of responsibility, it doesn't alter the very real sense (at least in my mind) that much that of what we hear on the news today could easily be fabricated. Mike Daisey got caught (though he doesn't think he did anything wrong--see below). Stephen Glass got caught. But who's to say there aren't others out there making up stories this very minute as long as it suits their narrative?
Mike Daisey admitted as much when he returned a week later after his initial "fact-finding" session with Ira Glass and Rob Schmitz (probably after having "lawyered" up) and justified the importance of his work because it was all about "making people care." He obviously had no qualms about going on This American Life, even though it was made clear to him that this was journalism, not theater. He obviously had no qualms about being the new media darling, apparently making the rounds on the major news outlets and publishing op-eds, etc. He obviously had no qualms circulating his script (42,000 downloads the first 48 hours!).
In other words, he had no qualms selling his fabrications as truth. Why? When confronted on This American Life by Ira Glass and asked why he wouldn't give them his Chinese interpreter's real name phone number so they could corroborate his story, he admitted he was afraid that doing so might "unpack the complexities" of how the story gets told.
Unpack the complexities? Is this just another way of saying you can pass off lies as truth Apparently so. Mike Daisey doesn't think he did anything wrong because he has some kind of "greater good" in mind.
I can't help but wonder why MSNBC and the other news outlets didn't question his story. Maybe it's because they believed the narrative, so they assumed the story was true. Even Ira Glass admits they were wrong to not kill the story when they couldn't get the facts. Why didn't they kill the story? Is it possible that they too believed the narrative? That's the conclusion I come to. And pundits wonder why regular people (like me) go to the alternative media outlets to get "the rest of the story."
One thing that was not mentioned on the program: Daisey's "narrative" slanders Google, and maybe Steve Jobs. Will This American Life (and other news outlets who also gave him his moment in the spotlight) hold this man accountable? Will there be follow-up legal action? I hope so.
Kudos to Rob Schmitz of Marketplace (Shanghai) for being on the alert and smelling a rat.This American Life: Retraction (March 16, 2010)
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