…My heart’s in Accra » The Passion of Mike Daisey: Journalism, Storytelling and the Ethics of Attention

…My heart’s in Accra » The Passion of Mike Daisey: Journalism, Storytelling and the Ethics of Attention:

The “fact-check” turns into a discussion about whether it’s fair for the US to outsource labor to other countries without sending western labor standards abroad as well. This leads to the odd experience of Nicholas Kristof discussing an essay he wrote with his wife, Sherryl WuDunn – who’s from a part of China near Foxconn’s factory – that offers “Two Cheers for Sweatshops“. Kristof and WuDunn argue that the sweatshop era is a relatively brief one in a country’s economic development, and that the working conditions are significantly better than the alternative – rural poverty.

For me, this postscript was the most helpful part of the show. Mike’s story puts productively uncomfortable questions on the table: How much should we care about the people who make the devices we use? When we export jobs, do we have a responsibility to export our labor protections as well? What’s the balance between development and considerations of worker safety? Daisey’s story from Shenzen falls well short of journalistic standards for reporting. But in terms of provoking an interesting conversation on rich topics, it’s massively successful. Unfortunately, those rich conversations get eclipsed once the conversation turns into a question of whether Daisey falsified a story.