By now, you've undoubtably heard the story of Mike Daisey. You know, he's the monologist whose one-man show about the working conditions at Chinese factories in The Agony And The Ecstasy of Steve Jobs was excerpted on This American Life back in January. And it just came out that a good deal of the excerpt was indeed fabricated. Daisey has gone on record now saying doing This American Life was a bad idea, that going back onto TAL to defend himself was a bad idea and has lambasted TAL creator Ira Glass for editing his defense and taking things out of context.
For the uninitiated, This American Life is a radio show produced out of Chicago that features different stories each week around different themes. The bulk of the stories are documentaries on different subjects. Every now and then, a short story or poem will be read by an actor (or the author) will also be included, tying into that week's theme. Ira will always say if a segment is from a short story, basically shooting up a signal flare to the audience that the piece is indeed fictional.
Full disclosure: we here at The Sidecar LOVE This American Life. Sue and I will frequently discuss the stories we've heard that week, and also check to see how many episodes behind the other is. I was also a huge fan of Showtime TV version of the show. [My love for the TV show and the "Pandora's Box" episode in particular is documented here] I have a very healthy love for documentaries, which is probably why I love the documentary stuff on TAL more than the fictional stuff. I love hearing how other people live, how other people think and how other people see the world and what they experience. The episode of TAL that featured Mike Daisey's exploits in China was stated as the truth. But apparently, that was not the case.
As you can imagine, I went into listening to the new episode called "Retraction" with a bit of a heavy heart. I consider it very ballsy that TAL did an entire episode trying to set the record straight. I won't go into what was incorrect or false in Mike Daisey's tale of the treatment of workers in China. You can listen Retraction yourself. But I will tell you this: Daisey does not come across well in Retraction, and he really only has himself to blame. 'Cause I know all about manipulating a bunch of stuff to tell a story...
In addition to being an actor, I make the bulk of my money working in reality television. I do what's called story producing. Basically, a bunch of footage for an episode comes in (between 50-100 hours) and my job is to sift through all that footage and tell the best story possible. It's like making a collage from a bunch of found material. Yes, sometimes that involves taking things out of order, cheating reactions to events that didn't really happen. You have to get creative because you have to deliver a compelling 30 minutes or hour of television. And it's all done under the aegis of reality television. There is a level of staginess to all reality shows and documentaries. Hell, even Nanook of the North -- considered by many to be the first real documentary -- had some staged elements in it. The subject is always aware that there's a camera crew on them all day, every day for weeks, months, even years. But you are watching someone being a version of themselves, living their lives in some way, shape or form. They may or may not be playing up to the camera, but they aren't also trying to pretend to be a fictional character for you either. Instead, you're watching them compete for money in a house full of cameras... or compete against a bunch of other women to date the same man... or an eccentric family and their strange life... etc., etc.. Same rules also are applicable for documentaries. They aren't playing a character; these people are being themselves. The difference is there's a producer and an editor shaping the story that you eventually end up seeing. And that's where Mr. Daisey's job and my job share a lot of similarities.
Mike Daisey's job is to tell monologues that engage an audience. He says that they're based on his real experiences, but now we know that word "based" is the operative in that sentence. In the following portion of Retraction, Mike Daisey squirms under Ira Glass's questioning. [Go ahead and click the link and listen; I'll wait.]
He comes across as testy and horribly smug, like even though he lied he can't be bothered to actually admit that he did something wrong. So, whatever likability he had going into the episode has completely evaporated by his first evasive answer.
The use of the pregnant pause in that portion of the show is stunning to me. How Mr. Daisey will take ages to think of what to say is gloriously excrutiating. But then again, did he actually pause or did Ira Glass's people add the pauses? Daisey thinks they were kept in on purpose:
"The segment with me is excruciating—four hours of grilling edited down to fifteen minutes. I thought the dead air was a nice touch, and finishing the episode with audio pulled out of context from my performance was masterful. That's Ira's choice, and it's his show..."
The dead air easily could have been edited out.But TAL made the choice to keep them in there, in order to tell their story. Daisey fabricated a bunch of stuff about his China visit, mixed the lies in with the truth and then edited it to tell the story he wanted. And now he's saying he's the victim of editing, like he's Omarosa or something. He edited the stories of the people he met in China, and flat-out lied about it. But he also won't admit that he lied. Here's an transcript of an exchange between Mike Daisey and TAL producer Rob Schmitz from the show:
Rob Schmitz: Does it matter if the things you’ve said in this play are untrue?
Mike Daisey: Yeah I think the truth always matters, truth is tremendously important. I don’t live in a subjective universe where everything is up for grabs. I really do believe that stories should be subordinate to the truth.
Rob Schmitz: Then in parts of this why didn’t you tell the truth?
Mike Daisey: Everything that’s in this monologue is built out of the trip I took and time I spent on the ground. So I don’t know that I would accept that interpretation. I don’t know that I would agree with that.
Even though Daisey admits to some things are fabricated, he says that it's still the truth. And this goes to what I think the crux of what this whole matter is. TAL asked him if the elements in his one-man show were real and he said yes. TAL then produced and broadcast the show as if it was real, and we in the audience accepted this as real. Just because someone presents something as the truth, it's their version of it. We want to accept what they say as the truth, but it's just their version of it. And that's true for everything: the news, documentaries, reality shows, anecdotes. Unless you are actually witnessing something with your own eyes as it unfolds in front of your face, you are always hearing someone's version of what happened. I story produce for a living but we all story produce when we tell an anecdote. When a friend or loved on asks "How was your day?", you are story producing the events of the day into a digestible tale. We all story produce every day, and we have to realize that everyone else is too. This whole kerfuffle with Mike Daisey shows that the proverbial grain of salt must be taken with every story that comes our way, especially those that purport to carry more weight than a Kardashian wedding or the results of a cooking show.
-- Jon
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