The opening titles to the live episode of This American Life.
Animated by Claire Keane, Vincent Rogozyk, and Chris Sonnenburg.
Posts tagged "Ira Glass"
Intellectual dreamboat.
Can’t wait to see Invisible Made Visible this afternoon. Currently streaming his interview on Conversations with Richard Fiddler in preparation.
This American Life retracts "Mr. Daisey goes to the Apple Factory"
After finding the episode which centers around Mike Daisey’s first hand experiences of the mistreatment of Apple employees in China’s Foxconn factory was “partially fabricated”, TAL has retracted the episode and devoted an hour to detailing the errors in “Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory,”. The episode which aired on 6 January, 2012 It was one of the most downloaded episodes in TAL history.
According to TAL:
As best as we can tell, Mike’s monologue in reality is a mix of things that actually happened when he visited China and things that he just heard about or researched, which he then pretends that he witnessed first hand. He pretends that he just stumbled upon an array of workers who typify all kinds of harsh things somebody might face in a factory that makes iPhones and iPads.
And the most powerful and memorable moments in the story all seem to be fabricated.
Ira Glass reflects that the story, in hindsight, should not have been aired at all:
I can say now in retrospect that when Mike Daisey wouldn’t give us contact information for his interpreter we should’ve killed the story rather than run it. we never should’ve broadcast this story without talking to that woman.
For his part, Mike Daisey has responded with the following:
“My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge… It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity. Certainly, the comprehensive investigations undertaken by The New York Times and a number of labor rights groups to document conditions in electronics manufacturing would seem to bear this out.”
Daisey went on to say that he is not a journalist, and does not consider what he does journalism, and that he regrets allowing “This American Life” to air his monologue.
Unfortunately, this will cause somewhat of a distraction for the campaign to improve wages and working conditions for those within Foxconn. This may potentially dent the perception of TAL’s integrity when it comes to its reporting standards.
But I must say that unlike other commercial media outlets (*ahem* Fox News and some Australian examples *ahem*), TAL appears to have acted swiftly and decisively to correct errors that it has discovered in its stories. It’s just unfortunate that different standards always appear to be applied to public broadcasters, compared to their commercial counterparts.
Was fortunate to catch the “Reinventing Radio” talk that Ira Glass gave today at Town Hall as part of Sydney Festival 2012. I say fortunate because, like most things in Sydney, the event sold out in the first 15 minutes of the tickets being released (which was in November, mind you).
But I digress.
Ira was utterly engaging, and fantastically hilarious. The way he weaves everyday stories that would be otherwise mundane, in a way that ropes you in for 60 or more continuous minutes is pure magic. However, I found myself distracted by the fact that I could actually see him talk. Which sounds bizarre, but being so used to hearing just his voice, the fact that I could actually see him in some ways detracted in parts. (This is despite the fact that I find Ira wildly attractive – the thinking woman’s crumpet if you will.) Other things that were amiss included terrible camera work for the large screen behind him, and the fact that he seemed to be uncomfortable with his mike headset, which lead to him constantly adjusting it throughout the talk.
I definitely would have loved to have seen him “panel” the show rather than using his ipad, and whilst I imagine paneling with the latter would have been way more simpler, not to mention a lot less bulky, there is something quite theatrical about watching someone operate a radio panel. The acrobatics and coordination required in having to flick switches in quick succession to create this seamless radio show is sadly lost using a touch screen tablet. And it was that part of the magic of (re)creating a live version of the show on stage which was regretfully missing.
It has to be said that This American Life’s uniqueness and it’s ability to push the journalistic and creative boundaries without the need to focus predominantly on monetizing it’s content definitely comes from the fact that it is a public radio program - something which should not be overlooked. This, a friend of mine who watched the show as well remarked, wasn’t necessarily acknowledged enough within the talk.
Overall, it was still amazing to see him in action. His way of storytelling is both captivating and mesmerizing. For me, I like the fact that Ira was a late bloomer - evidently it took a very long time for him to craft his niche, it gives hope to us who are still plugging alone have yet to reach our creative peak.
Accent theme by Handsome Code
