Mike Daisey Returns to the Apple Story, With Journalists as Targets

Mike Daisey was last seen apologizing for exaggerations and falsehoods in his influential one-man show “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” about the working conditions at the Chinese factories that make many Apple devices.

But he has not given up the cause. This week, he introduced another Apple-centric performance, with unwilling co-stars Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, the journalists who run the technology news site All Things D. Their D10 conference was headlined on Tuesday by Tim Cook, Mr. Jobs’s successor at Apple.

Mr. Daisey took to Twitter and his blog to accuse the two of pulling their punches in an on-stage interview with Mr. Cook, failing to hold him accountable for the conditions in the Foxconn factories where iPads and iPhones are made. “Kara and Walt — do you really think you asked hard questions tonight? Goodness, you got Cook to admit … that Ping was a failure!”

On Twitter he offered this summary: “An open letter to All Things D. Short version: you hacks.”

The run on this Mike Daisey performance wasn’t very long. Ms. Swisher blocked him on Twitter in less than a day, dispatching him: “@mdaisey oh good lord, please go away.”

In fact, it was a comment by Ms. Swisher to Mr. Cook that got the ball rolling with Mr. Daisey. As introduction to the subject of conditions of Chinese factories, she said, according to All Things D’s live blog of the interview: “On China, Kara notes, you have many critics, and not just fictional ones (a reference to Mike Daisey).”

That apparently was more than enough to wind up Mr. Daisey, whose blog post was dripping with contempt. “Maybe the problem is in part that these tech journalists, whom I have been told over and over again these last few months that will now carry the banner, now that Apple is awake, they will do the job I never could with ‘real reporting’ and ‘impartial objective coverage’… maybe they aren’t actually journalists either?”

Funny, The All Things D framed the interview differently – a headline spoke of Mr. Cook being “in the hot seat” at the conference.

Of course, Mr. Daisey had to address his own fallen perch. “I don’t call myself a journalist — I never did. And I have paid the price for where I’ve gone wrong.”

But his past gave Mr. Mossberg and Ms. Swisher all the ammunition they needed. Mr. Mossberg’s reaction, via Twitter: “Hmm…being attacked by an admitted liar is sort of a badge of honor.”