Here is the second in my Critical Thinking Fail series. I just read this article at Yahoo about a story that broke last January on the radio show This American Life. In it a man named Mike Daisy made some pretty serious allegations about the condition of the factory workers in China working on Apple products.

It turns out he made up at least some of the allegations. That’s fine and dandy. He’s a liar, good to know. Keep track of the liars in your life and understand their words in that context.

My critical thinking fail is this. Daisy told This American Life producers that he “lost the phone number” of the translator who took him around to the factories in question. When tracked down said translator put Daisy’s stories into doubt. Subsequently, Daisy admitted to making up some of the allegations although he largely stands by his story.

So, my question is, did This American Life fail to think critically when they went ahead with the story without meeting with the translator to corroborate the story?

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Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery fantasy with a Libertarian Twist