Michael Lewis’ story continues, and he figures out why Emir Kamenica insists on remembering, and telling, the story of his life the way he does — even when he finds out that some of the facts may be wrong.
Ira tells the story of Meron Estefanos, a freelance journalist who in 2011 got a troubling tip: A group of Eritrean hostages was being tortured and held for ransom in the Sinai desert. Along with the tip was a phone number.
There are about seventy thousand Americans living in mainland China today, according to the Chinese and US governments. A lot of the Americans in China only stay for a few years, but then there are others — American ex-pats who’ve lived in China for a decade or more with no foreseeable plans to come home.
Host Ira Glass tells listeners we can no longer stand behind the reporting in the recently aired episode "Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory." He explains how Marketplace reporter Rob Schmitz tracked down Daisey's interpreter in China — a woman named Cathy Lee — who disputes much of Daisey's story.
Rob Schmitz, a Shanghai-based reporter for Marketplace, tracks down and interviews Cathy Lee, Mike Daisey's interpreter on his trip to Shenzhen, China, and the Foxconn factory. In her interview with Rob, Cathy disputes much of what Daisey has been telling theater audiences since 2010 and much of what he said on the radio.
Host Ira Glass has a lot of questions for Mike Daisey, beginning with why Daisey lied to Ira and This American Life producer Brian Reed about how they could fact-check his story with Cathy Lee. Ira also explains This American Life's fact-checking process, in general.
To get a sense of what really is true of Apple's working conditions in China, Ira talks to New York Times reporter Charles Duhigg. Duhigg, along with Times reporter David Barboza, wrote the newspaper's front-page investigative series in early 2012 about this subject.
We realized that there are already reporters on the ground, embedded inside middle schools: The kids who report the daily announcements, sometimes on video with full newscast sets. Producer Jonathan Menjivar wondered what would happen if instead of announcing sports scores and the daily cafeteria menu, the kids reported what's really on their minds.
Joshuah Bearman tells the story of Pete's ridealong with the PI Moms, and how strange things started to happen. As he dug deeper into their operations, he learned about cases like the Candyman, where everything gets oddly and unnecessarily complicated.
Host Ira Glass spends time in perhaps the toughest room on earth, the editorial meeting at the satirical newspaper, The Onion, where there's one laugh for every 100 jokes.
Back in 2004, a reporter named David Holthouse published a remarkable story in the weekly paper he worked for, Westword. It's about something he waited his entire life to do...since childhood.
Producer Lisa Pollak learns some of the things people in Chattooga are talking about, thanks to a Summerville News column called "Soundoff." (7 minutes)
Chuck Salter, son of Georgia Rambler Charles Salter, Sr., visits a man named Windell Cleveland, who was interviewed by his father 33 years ago. Chuck is a senior writer at Fast Company Magazine.
There is a four mile long bridge in Naan-jing China, famous for how many people jump off to commit suicide. In 2003, a man named Chen Sah began spending all of his weekends on the bridge, trying to single handedly stop the jumpers.
Isaiah Thompson tells the story of the Julia Tuttle Causeway in Miami, a bridge that became home to a population of sex offenders, after a powerful lobbyist named Ron Book helped make it illegal for them live almost anywhere else in the city. Isaiah Thompson is a reporter and columnist for the Philadelphia City Paper.
In Tehran in 2004, Omid Memarian confessed to doing things he'd never done, meeting people he'd never met, following plots he'd never heard of. Why he did that, and why a lot of other people have confessed to the same things, is all in the fine print. This American Life producer Nancy Updike tells the story.
Host Ira Glass notes the sub-industry in journalism right now of reporting anything that looks like a sign of the recession. He then goes on to list a handful of his own favorites, including a dentist who's seen an increase in broken teeth from grinding, and a decrease in shark attacks.
Lawrence Wright is a reporter for the New Yorker Magazine, and an author of the bestselling book on Al Qaeda, The Looming Tower. He's also one of the few people in America who can say definitively that he was targeted by the U.S.