<story><title>This American Life Retracting &quot;Mr. Daisey &amp; The Apple Factory&quot;</title><url>http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jun8</author><text>From a naive viewpoint: Why is all this reporting about factory conditions focus on Apple, i.e. Foxconn? Is there proof that factories operated by Foxconn are worse than the typical Chinese factory? Or is Apple pushing them to Draconian measures, e.g. guards with guns, child workers, etc.?&lt;p&gt;How&apos;s this any different from any other Made in China electronics product?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The replies are aligned with what I was thinking: If anything, Foxcon is above average in factory conditions. The major reason for the Apple focus is because of its high visibility.&lt;p&gt;I despise this easy targetism! I felt the same while watching &lt;i&gt;Supersize Me&lt;/i&gt;, which focused on McDonalds, and some of Michael Moore&apos;s films. The basic premise may be correct, but selecting targets to ride on their name (McDonalds, Walmart, Apple) is an easy tactic and in fact puts off the critical thinking people who resist the manipulation (well, at least it puts me off). And what&apos;s more, in most of these cases the (more naive) audience is led to believe that the situation  is &lt;i&gt;this specific company&apos;s fault&lt;/i&gt;, leading to behavior like &quot;Man, I&apos;m never gonna eat another BigMac, will go to Burger King instead&quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>tptacek</author><text>It&apos;s not. A generous interpretation: nobody thinks about the branding on their Samsung phone or their LG television, but people feel a personal connection to Apple&apos;s brand (or, alternatively, are hit over the head with it every day). So if you&apos;re optimizing your story for relevance to a US audience (a perfectly valid thing to do, if you stay within the bounds of the truth), you naturally focus in on Apple.</text></comment>
<story><title>This American Life Retracting &quot;Mr. Daisey &amp; The Apple Factory&quot;</title><url>http://www.thisamericanlife.org/blog/2012/03/retracting-mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Jun8</author><text>From a naive viewpoint: Why is all this reporting about factory conditions focus on Apple, i.e. Foxconn? Is there proof that factories operated by Foxconn are worse than the typical Chinese factory? Or is Apple pushing them to Draconian measures, e.g. guards with guns, child workers, etc.?&lt;p&gt;How&apos;s this any different from any other Made in China electronics product?&lt;p&gt;EDIT: The replies are aligned with what I was thinking: If anything, Foxcon is above average in factory conditions. The major reason for the Apple focus is because of its high visibility.&lt;p&gt;I despise this easy targetism! I felt the same while watching &lt;i&gt;Supersize Me&lt;/i&gt;, which focused on McDonalds, and some of Michael Moore&apos;s films. The basic premise may be correct, but selecting targets to ride on their name (McDonalds, Walmart, Apple) is an easy tactic and in fact puts off the critical thinking people who resist the manipulation (well, at least it puts me off). And what&apos;s more, in most of these cases the (more naive) audience is led to believe that the situation  is &lt;i&gt;this specific company&apos;s fault&lt;/i&gt;, leading to behavior like &quot;Man, I&apos;m never gonna eat another BigMac, will go to Burger King instead&quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>frossie</author><text>I suspect it is a combination of two factors. First, Apple customers are considered (rightly or wrongly) to be affluent, and therefore the kind of people who can choose to boycott something for ethical reasons (as opposed to the people queueing for 6 hours on Black Friday to buy a TV, who are deemed to be purely price sensitive).&lt;p&gt;I suspect the other reason is simply the fact that Apple is a market leader (dominant in certain of its segments) and so as a journalist it makes sense to go after them, as your readers are likely to have heard of them or own one of its products. A lot more consumers have an iPod than a Dell computer.</text></comment>