Correction: Review of Mike Daisey's Apple show
NEW YORK (AP) — In an Oct. 17 review of artist Mike Daisey's one-man show "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs," The Associated Press reported that Daisey's investigations in China found "horrific" labor conditions at factories that make Apple products.
Daisey said this month that he cannot vouch for some of the assertions he made in his show about things he personally witnessed or experienced. The AP story said Daisey, who used a translator in China, says he remembers meeting a group of workers who appeared to be underage, one of whom identified her age as 13. His translator disputes this.
Daisey also said he met a worker with a twisted hand damaged by machinery; he says now that his translator does not recall the worker in question having said he was employed at a factory that made Apple products.
On his blog, Daisey now acknowledges that his show was not entirely based on first-hand reporting, but "uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story." He said, "What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism." Daisey has declined to speak to the AP about inconsistencies between his content of his show and what he actually saw.
