Recent revelations that Mike Daisey fabricated a story for This American Life about Apple’s factories in China bring to mind previous cases where journalists and academics exaggerated the details. Inside Higher Ed columnist John Warner writes that what compels people like Daisey to commit fraud are their own egos, and the drive they feel to cast themselves in the central role of the story:
Let us also acknowledge the rationale that we tell these lies in service of some greater truth is also complete and utter bullshit. Mike Daisey and Greg Mortenson and John D’Agata and James Frey, and me will tell you that we tell the lie not to enrich ourselves, or for reasons of self-preservation, but because, in the words of Daisey, we “want to make people care.”
This is convenient, and maybe we even believe it, but that doesn’t make it true. It would even be handy to blame these lies on simple greed. Mortenson and Frey have profited to the tune of millions. It’s possible Daisey is approaching that.
But I think there’s a deeper truth here, a motivation that extends beyond the transparent B.S. that these lies are in the service of a higher calling.
What these lies invariably do to the stories is take the focus off the story itself, and place it on the storyteller.
Even before Daisey’s lies were exposed, his use of them served to make himself more central to the tale. The story is no longer about exploited workers, but about an intrepid and dogged Mike Daisey who cares so darn much he has to go and witness firsthand how his gadgets get made, and once there, connects so personally and profoundly with these workers, that only he can come back home and tell the story in a way that will change hearts and minds. Daisey isn’t in it for the money, but for the ego.
Similarly, Greg Mortenson’s tale makes it clear that in some way he was special, he was chosen by fate to execute this mission. I bet Mortenson treasures his sixteen honorary degrees over his millions.
For John D’Agata, his approach can’t help but remind us we need writers to tell our stories, lest we forget.
I’m tired of talking about James Frey, but you get the point.
Read TCF’s previous coverage of the Greg Mortenson controversy here.
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