Mike Daisey

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Mike Daisey:

Mike Daisey Retooled His Entire Monologue To Finally Be Factually Accurate [Updated]

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Mike Daisey performing
Mike Daisey performing "The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs"

 

Mike Daisey’s life has been pretty crazy the past 12 months. He shot into fame with his monologue The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, which sparked the public’s interest in Chinese working conditions. Woz even saw the show and cried.

Then word came out that many parts of Daisey’s play were fabricated and an unrelenting storm of excrement rained down on Daisey. Now he’s back, and his play The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs has been completely updated to version 2.0 so people will stop accusing him of lying while telling some of the vital truths behind Apple’s manufacturing process.

Mike Daisey Slams Walt Mossberg And Kara Swisher For Being Too Soft On Apple’s Tim Cook At D10

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Cook believes Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher were too soft on Tim Cook during the D10 interview this week.
Daisey believes that Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher were too soft on Tim Cook during the D10 interview this week.

Mike Daisey, the author behind The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, who was forced to admit that he fabricated some of his claims about worker mistreatment in Apple’s supply chain, has criticized Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher for being too soft on Tim Cook during their interview at All Things D’s D10 conference earlier this week.

After offensively branding Swisher as lazy for her use of the word “fictional,” in a post on his blog, Daisey continues to blast the pair’s “weak” interview questions and suggests how they can “do [their] job better.”

Meet The Everyman Mac Owner Crusading To Pull Change.org’s Anti-Apple Petition [Interview]

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The anti-petition petition on Change.org.
The counter petition on Change.org.

Mark Shields’ petition on Change.org sparked by Mike Daisey’s This American Life story earned over 250,000 online signatures and led to protests outside Apple stores across the country.

That doesn’t sit well with Paul Dost, who launched a counter petition after the TAL story was debunked. Cult of Mac reached out to Dost via email for the story behind the anti-petition petition.

Mike Daisey Says Show Must Go On, Retracts False Info From Foxconn Monologue

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image courtesy of LeaderNewspaper.com
image courtesy of LeaderNewspaper.com

Mike Daisey. Most of you are probably sick of hearing about his scandal with This American Life regarding the lies he told the media and his audiences about Apple’s manufacturing environment overseas. But there’s one more part to the story. Daisey has revealed what he plans to do with his show, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, moving forward.

He’s vowed that he will continue performing in the face of his critics. There will also be some changes made to reflect the inaccurate information that were recently uncovered.

Does It Matter That Mike Daisey’s Play Isn’t 100% True? [CultCast Discussion]

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If you didn’t catch The CultCast Special Edition episode we released this last Saturday, you can download it here.

What’s so special about it? Well, besides giving you our honest hands-on review of the new iPad, we decided to include an impromptu pre-show discussion on the Agony and Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs, the powerful monologue by Mike Daisy that’s been getting press lately for being partly fabricated.

Our frank discussion revolved around this notion: Mr. Daisey’s monologue focussed consumers’ attention on labor conditions in China, and in that light it has done a world of good. Should it matter that it’s not 100% true?

Mike Daisey: “Truth Is Vitally Important” And “I Will Not Go Silent”

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Mike Daisey performing his one-man show, "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs"

Mike Daisey, the man behind the hugely popular show that highlights Apple’s manufacturing environment at Foxconn, has received heavy media criticism since This American Life revealed that he had lied and given inaccurate information about his trip to China. Daisey continues to perform his show at theaters in the United States, and he says he still stands by his work.

Since the Retraction episode of The American Life aired, Daisey has elaborated further on the issue surrounding Chinese manufacturing and his public scandal.

From Silicon Valley To Shenzhen [Exclusive Book Excerpt]

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A view of Shenzhen, CC-licensed on Wikimedia by Mauchai.
A view of Shenzhen, CC-licensed on Wikimedia by Mauchai.

Mike Daisey’s NPR monologue may have misrepresented his experience at Foxconn in China, but his main findings about working conditions there ring true.

Underage workers, health hazards and debilitating overtime are findings echoed by sociologist Dr. Boy Lüthje, who has spent the last decade researching labor conditions at China’s contract manufacturers where U.S. tech giants including Apple, Dell and HP make the electronic devices that populate our homes.

(You can read Cult of Mac’s exclusive interview with him here.)

Along with a team of researchers, he’s the author of a forthcoming academic work titled From Silicon Valley to Shenzen. The data here, Lüthje notes, is from late 2009 (before the wave of suicides hit Foxconn) but the general conditions remain largely unaltered. When it hits shelves, the book will include updated comments on Foxconn and Apple, he says.

Publisher Rowman & Littlefield granted Cult of Mac permission to publish an excerpt from Chapter 4, which similarities between electronics assembly plants in Mexico, China and Eastern Europe.

Critics Say This American Life Retraction Doesn’t Clear Foxconn Of Worker Abuse

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Foxconn iPhone assembly
A Foxconn assembly plant in China.
Photo: Foxconn

The China Labor Bulletin (CLB) has spoken out after an episode of This American Life, which highlights the poor working conditions at one Chinese factory, was retracted last week, making it clear that this does not clear Foxconn’s name. “The press and stock investors will continue to watch how Foxconn treats its workers,” the CLB made clear.

Listen To Mike Daisey’s Agony On The Special Retraction Episode Of “This American Life”

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Meet the man who turned
Meet the man who turned "Foxconn" into a household name.

Performer and monologist Mike Daisey has been all over the news since the This American Life radio show retracted its most downloaded episode ever in which Daisey talked about visiting Foxconn, the Chinese factory that Apple products are made in. This American Life said that Daisey’s story contained “significant fabrications.” The New York Times also edited an article it ran by Daisey to reflect the inaccurate re-telling of his experience at Foxconn in China.

To put it plainly, Daisey said he saw things he never saw and met people he never met. He’s been feeding his audiences false information for many months. For the first time in the show’s history, This American Life has run a special retraction episode to clear up the mess. If you’ve been following the Apple/Foxconn issue, you should really give it a listen.

This American Life Retracts Foxconn Episode, Says It Was “Partially Fabricated”

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Mike Daisey performing
Mike Daisey performing "The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs"

This American Life‘s January episode “Mr. Daisey Goes To The Apple Factory” was the show’s most popular episode in history, racking up over one million downloads and setting off a chain reaction of reports that eventually resulted in Apple ordering an independent audit of working conditions in its supply change.

The titular Mr. Daisey has been covered exhaustively by Cult of Mac. He is probably best known outside of his NPR appearance as the man behind the one-man show “The Agony & Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”, which Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak wept at.

Unfortunately, Daisey’s integrity and honesty are being called into question after This American Life took the unprecedented step of retracting the episode earlier today,

These Raging Grannies Shake It Outside The Apple Store For Worker’s Rights [Interview]

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Raging Grannies protest outside the Palo Alto store Feb. 13
Raging Grannies protest outside the Palo Alto store Feb. 13

If you happen by the Palo Alto Apple Store Monday afternoon, that group of elderly women dressed in white dancing the robot to techno music on the sidewalk aren’t some funky flashmob.

They’re Raging Grannies, and they’re are mad as hell about worker conditions in China where Apple products are made.

Galvanized by a recent Mike Daisey story on NPR about Foxconn, they’re staging monthly protests outside the Palo Alto Apple store. They’ll be on the sidewalk grooving to bring more attention to Apple’s labor policies in China at 3 p.m. on March 12.

The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs Goes Open Source

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Mike Daisey performing
Mike Daisey performing "The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs"

Playwright Mike Daisey has released the transcript of his influential monologue, The Agony And The Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs, under a royalty-free license.

The move will allow Daisey’s hit play about the conditions in Apple’s Chinese factories to be performed anywhere in the world without restriction.Indeed, Daisey claims that more than 500 groups and individuals in 13 countries have contacted him because they want to stage it.

“No one has done this before,” said Daisey in an email to Cult of Mac.com. “Theater doesn’t do a lot of things like this, and certainly not with a transcript that could have been sold — I had offers from two publishers — for real money.”

Daisey said there’s interest from three major theaters in Germany, a mid-size theater in Spain and two in France. There’s an actor who is planning to perform it in Kurdistan, a group in Nova Scotia that is adapting it, and a group in New York planning to turn it into a full-on play.

“There’s a lot,” says Daisey. “It’s going to be interesting.

A Campaign To Stop Stephen Fry, Who Is Otherwise Wonderful, From Being An Idiot

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This is a guest post by Mike Daisey, who’s latest monologue, The Agony and Ecstacy of Steve Jobs, is at New York’s Public Theater through March 4. We highly recommend you go see it. It made Steve Wozniak cry. The post originally appeared here.

Stephen Fry, brilliant comedian, wonderful actor, and bon vivant just posted this in his Twitter feed:

As a fellow raconteur it’s painful to have to confront Mr. Fry with this fact, but he’s being a total idiot.

He’s in good company—most of the Mac universe is in the midst of a massive propaganda campaign, trying to convince itself and the universe that the cognitive dissonance they are feeling at this moment isn’t real.

So you’re going to see some good people, like Mr. Fry, who happen to love their Apple products very much, say some horrible things because they don’t actually understand how to reconcile the beauty and grace of their wonderful Apple products with the unvarnished, verified truth of how they are produced.

Steve Wozniak Urges Tim Cook To See Play About Foxconn Factories

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The New York Times‘ Bay Citizen website has published more remarks from Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak on the subject of Mike Daisey’s controversial one man show.

As previously reported, Woz was moved to tears by “The Agony and The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” a monologue about Apple and Foxconn, the company’s largest supplier in Asia that saw a rash of worker suicides last year.

Wozniak says he found the play deeply upsetting. He urges Tim Cook, Apple’s COO and current acting CEO, to go see the one-man show besucase the issues it discusses could hurt Apple financially in the future:

Tim should know about this very soon, so that he knows what’s in more and more people’s heads. The emotions and understanding and moral feelings that Mike brings out are very strong and could be a threat to Apple’s future, even though they are only simmering now.

The Bay Citizen: Apple Co-Founder Responds to ‘The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs’

Apple Cofounder Steve Wozniak Cried At Mike Daisey’s Play About Apple

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Mike Daisey performing
Mike Daisey performing "The Agony & Ecstasy Of Steve Jobs"

Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, was moved to tears by a play about the working conditions of Apple’s factories in China.

Woz went to see “The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs” by Mike Daisey on Tuesday night at the Berkeley Repertory Theater. The one -man show, which describes the working conditions in the massive factories that make gadgets for Apple, Hewlett-Packard and others, made Wozniak cry.

The Apple cofounder told the New York Times’ Bay Citizen website:

“The shocking things that Mike said which brought me to tears were so because they came as a first-person story,” Wozniak said. “Mike was living the pain of what he was describing as he told it.”

The monologue describes Daisey’s trip to Shenzhen last year, where he met workers at Foxconn’s plant as young as 12 and 13, and heard tales of the long, repetitive work. As many as 17 workers have committed suicide at the Foxconn plant.

Wozniak also said: “I will never be the same after seeing that show.”