In a long apology posted on his site, storyteller Mike Daisey apologized to his audience, theater professionals, journalists and human rights activists for fabricating stories in his popular monologue, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.
Earlier this month, This American Life retracted an episode about Apple factories in China that featured his work.
Follow this link to read the entire apology, prompted by a Truth in Theatre panel where a playwright, performer, director and journalist discussed Daisey’s work. (Via Slate)
I would like to apologize to my colleagues in the theater, especially those who work in non-fiction and documentary fields. What you do is essential to our civic discourse. If I have made your path more difficult, or the truth of your work harder for audiences to discern, I am sorry.
I would also like to apologize to the journalists I gave interviews to in which I exaggerated my own experiences. In my drive to tell this story and have it be heard, I lost my grounding. Things came out of my mouth that just weren’t true, and over time, I couldn’t even hear the difference myself.
To human rights advocates and those who have been doing the hard work of bringing attention to these kinds of labor issues for years, if my failures have made your jobs harder, I apologize. If I had done my job properly, with the skills I have honed for years, I could have avoided this. Instead, I blinded myself, and lost sight of the people I wanted most to help.