Daisey's apology too little, too late, damage is done

[Commentary] The truth matters.

For nearly two weeks, the theater and journalism worlds have buzzed with the tragedy surrounding Mike Daisey, a talented performer who portrayed his work as fact when it was actually a blend of reality and fiction. When he finally apologized this week, it was, frankly, too little too late. His downfall began in January when he brought his one-person stage production "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" to the public radio program "This American Life." Daisey has performed the show since 2010, including a stint at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. It takes aim at an Apple supplier in China and raises legitimate issues about working conditions that also have been raised by advocacy groups and journalists, including from the New York Times. But Daisey said he witnessed events that did not happen. It all came unraveled when the China correspondent for the radio program Marketplace heard the broadcast and realized the story contradicted his own reporting experiences.

On March 25, as criticism mounted, Daisey finally apologized to theater colleagues, to journalists, to activists who had done the heavy lifting on issues he trumpeted, and to his audiences. It has been a great privilege, he wrote, "to be able to call myself a storyteller and to have audiences come and listen to what I have to say, to extend their trust to me. I am sorry I was careless with that trust." If he had said that weeks ago, it might have helped. But now, most will only remember him for his lies. And the chip in the journalistic foundation he once claimed as his own will be impossible to repair.