TAL: red state / blue state

Mike Daisey's Foxconn story retracted

The popular NPR series, This American Life, has retracted the Mike Daisey episode aired in early January. The March 16, 2012 episode of TAL was devoted to examining the misinformation and inaccuracies reported by Daisey about Apple's major fabricator, Foxconn. Daisey's major defense for wrongdoing is that he is a showman, rather than a journalist. (Needless to say, all stories posted on this blog about Daisey's work should likewise be reassessed.)

For reportage on what went on in terms of TAL's retraction, see the bottom segment of CNN's Reliable Sources in which commentators take to task the uncritical ease by which many members of big media, including CNN itself, accepted Daisey's stories at face value without fact-checking efforts.

self-deportation and generalized oppression in Alabama

Alabama lawmakers may have done better had they consulted the work of the late sociologist, Robert K. Merton, before enacting recent law against undocumented workers and their families. Specifically, Merton emphasized the fact that intentional change often carries latent dysfunctional consequences, i.e., serious, unintended, undesirable outcomes. The law was supposed to make life so difficult for immigrants without papers that they would simply leave the state. However, as Jack Hitt explains in Alien Experiment, Act One of this This American Life episode, it has made living and working in Alabama far more difficult for many others, in addition to those initially targeted.

who makes your iStuff?

This recent This American Life segment looks at the workplace context in which Apple products, such as iPads, iPhones, and Macs, are made. Mike Daisey, storyteller extraordinaire, talks about his findings upon visiting China's biggest electronics manufacturer, Foxconn.