Editor’s Note: In March 2012, the national radio show “This American Life”, which ran a long excerpt from Mike Daisey’s play “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs”, retracted its story saying it contains significant fabrications. Daisey responded saying the play “uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story.” TechCrunch has interviewed Daisey several times about his acclaimed play and he repeated to us some of the stories he has now admitted he didn’t actually witness. For more, see John Biggs’ TechCrunch post on “The Agony and Ecstasy of Mike Daisey“, and other posts about the retraction and Daisey’s response.

Last I night I had the good fortune to see Mike Daisey’s highly acclaimed show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs at the Berkeley Repertory Theatre. It’s both an entertaining and acutely moving performance that anyone who owns an Apple product has a moral duty to see.

Daisey is not only a brilliant monologist in the tradition of Michael Moore and Spalding Gray, but he’s also a crusading journalist who has exposed the inhumane working conditions of the workers at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China. Daisey went to Shenzhen and stood outside the monstrous Foxconn factory and interviewed its workers – some as young as 12 years old – about the inhumane working conditions there. This is what he found…

This is the first of a two-part interview in the Keen On… series. Tomorrow, look for Part Two: Why Journalists Aren’t Reporting the Real Story About Apple and Foxconn.

Why Mike Daisey is no longer an Apple fanboy

Why Apple is committing a great sin against humanity

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• MIKE DAISEY

Person: Mike Daisey

Website: mikedaisey.blogspot.com

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Mike Daisey has been called “the master storyteller” and “one of the finest solo performers of his generation” by the New York Times for his groundbreaking monologues which weave together autobiography, gonzo journalism, and unscripted performance to tell hilarious and heartbreaking stories that cut to the bone, exposing secret histories and unexpected connections. His monologues include last season’s critically acclaimed If You See Something Say Something, the controversial How Theater Failed America, the six-hour epic Great Men of Genius,...

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Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com