Author and actor Mike Daisey complained that other journalists never challenged his work on Monday, in his first public talk since his high-profile story on Apple manufacturers was retracted.
Daisey became mired in scandal on Friday after it was revealed that his story on the Foxconn factories in China was partially fabricated. The piece had been a huge hit, and was downloaded over 888,000 times. He apologized and admitted to taking shortcuts in the story, but defended his work twice on his blog.
On Monday night, he addressed the scandal again in a scheduled talk at Georgetown University. Daisey apologized to listeners, journalists and Ira Glass. However, he continued to defend himself and lamented the way media outlets treated the story.
He said that he did his show "in silence" after the media failed to investigate the issue of harsh working conditions in China. "What it became about for me was watching the story die," he said. He also claimed that other media outlets allowed his lies to spin out of control.
We'd sit down and they would start the interview on camera or something or radio and they would say something like, "Mike Daisey, now, you've gone to China and you've done X, Y, and Z," and they would say something that was a little hyperbolic, not quite exactly correct, and I would feel awkward about actually saying, no, no, no, don't say that, that's not true. Or they'd say, "You've gone inside of Foxconn." And I'd be like ... I didn't go inside of Foxconn, but I was outside of Foxconn. And I would find myself not interrupting them because we're in interview situations.
It is not the first time Daisey has pointed his finger at the media in the aftermath of the retraction. On Monday, he alleged that "This American Life" took him out of context in his first interview about the scandal.