Every couple of months when news is short, not one it seems, but a slathering of muck mongering journalists and bloggers resort to the same old tired story that Apple kills workers in China. As there was today, even by CBS. Haven’t they got anything else to do? This story has been running on and off for over two years now.
The first part of the truth that is missing from these stories is that almost every single US consumer electronic device is made in China. So are these journalists carrying stories about Kindle’s killing Chinese workers? Maybe your television set? What about your cordless phone. Your microwave oven? Why no stories about Acer laptops killing workers in China.
The truth is that almost without exception, US electronics companies ship off their assembly of devices to China because of its cheap labour. They all know that workers in China sleep in cardboard boxes and commit suicide at a rate that would appall anyone with any sense of decency. They know these workers work more than 60 hours per week. They know they have no leave entitlements. They know how atrocious and hazardous the working conditions really are. That they know all this is truly indecent.
But this is not about decency, This is about making billions of dollars in profit. If it wasn’t for dying Chinese workers, there wouldn’t be so many bmillions of dollars in profit. So let’s get the story right. The greed for profit by US companies, or more correctly Wall Street, is killing Chinese workers. So why always blame Apple? Because that’s how you write gutter journalism. Ignore the facts, but slam a word that will grab attention in the headline. Hence Apple. Who would bother reading a story about an electric fruit juicer killing Chinese workers?
The other truth is that the exportation of product assembly to China by US companies has killed jobs in the US. With an unemployment rate of 10%, one would have to wonder at the logic. But logic just doesn’t come in to play here. Only profit. So forget about singling out Apple here.
The newsworthy story is that US companies are indeed sending their product assembly to China, and hence to factories where workers do die. But is the real story about how many jobs at home in the US that they have killed?
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Niki Savage
01/02/2012 at 3:41 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I think this sensationalism reporting is becoming more prevalent. But when you analyze a story, as you’ve just done, the skewed reporting becomes obvious. Whatever happened to objective reporting. Oh, I know, that would be too boring. And boring doesn’t sell newspapers.
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Derek Haines
01/02/2012 at 7:41 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Well Niki, there is a saying that a dog biting a man is not news. But a man biting a dog is!
Derek Haines recently posted..Apple Kills Workers – By Muck Raking Reporters
Henie
01/02/2012 at 3:53 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Hi Derek..I am not that familiar with this before but thanks for letting us know about it..
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Jack Eason
01/02/2012 at 4:51 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I wonder if it could be because Apple is always in the news these days for all kinds of reasons. Perhaps it is a touch of ‘tall poppy syndrome’. Make a point of continually advertising your products more than the opposition and the newspapers will always be there.
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Derek Haines
01/02/2012 at 7:43 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Unfortunately Jack, it’s about keywords. News on the Internet is found by keywords, and well, Apple is one of the most searched for words (keywords) around. Well, second only to ‘free sex’! lol
Derek Haines recently posted..Apple Kills Workers – By Muck Raking Reporters
Andrew Claymore
01/02/2012 at 6:19 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Have we ever really had a fair and impartial press?
In Canada we have the CBC, which often displays some of the worst hack journalism I’ve ever seen. I wonder what they would be like if they couldn’t count on my tax dollars to cover their bloated expense accounts.
CNN is no better, I have no desire to watch a channel that puts Nancy Grace on the air. She’s not half as clueless as she acts but the act gets the ratings and sells the ads.
I watch BBC and Al Jazeera and try to average the two…
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Derek Haines
01/02/2012 at 7:47 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
It’s no different here in CH Andrew. Our public broadcaster goes for the same-o, same-o platitudes and clichés. Nor was it different when I lived in Oz. Always aiming at the lowest intellect. News a 4 year old can understand.
Derek Haines recently posted..Apple Kills Workers – By Muck Raking Reporters
John Chapman
02/02/2012 at 6:24 am (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I think you can squarely lay the blame on the media here. I got sick of the doom and gloom they seem to thrive on and started a new blog this year looking for just one item of good news each day. Some days it’s incredibly hard to find anything at all!
I am absolutely certain that if reporters looked they would find good news about Apple, Google, Microsoft e.t.c. Maybe, if they looked, they might find a politician who praises a sound decision made by his/her opposition (Well OK – maybe that’s expecting too much.)
Has anyone compared the lives of these Chinese workers now with what sort of lifestyle they had before they started assembling iPods?
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Derek Haines
02/02/2012 at 8:05 am (UTC 2) Link to this comment
I think you hit the nail on the head John.
Before the likes of Foxconn employed thousands of workers in China, where did they work and what did they do? Subsistence farming?
Derek Haines recently posted..Apple Kills Workers – By Muck Raking Reporters
Enrika
02/02/2012 at 9:53 am (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Hi Derek..This is really unusual…Thanks a lot for sharing it to us here…
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Tinna
06/02/2012 at 7:11 am (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Hi Derek..I hope you can post more of this information…Thanks a lot!
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Greg Scowen
06/02/2012 at 4:02 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
My understanding is that this story is reported as Apple killing workers because it was undisputedly a Foxconn factory building Apple devices where the explosion occurred. Hopefully, if it had been an Acer factory, it would have been Acer killing workers.
That said, I recently had to cancel subscriptions to various newspapers because the low-quality reporting (and choice of news items) just infuriated me to the point of embarrassing myself with comments on Facebook or other outlets.
I have been a happier person since.
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Allison @ BrocolliRecipePro
07/02/2012 at 8:07 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Hi Derek! I am glad to read your post! I am now updated with what’s happening around. Hope to hear more from you regarding this matter…
Audra36
08/02/2012 at 7:15 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
This information simply shows that now a days the important factors in order to find decent works is you have a special skills.
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Maysel
13/02/2012 at 2:23 pm (UTC 2) Link to this comment
Job well done with your blog.. Keep posting a blog like this.. Love to visit you here more often..