Rob Schmitz — the Marketplace China correspondent who broke the news of Mike Daisey’s erroneous Foxconn report on This American Life — talked to TPM about the country he covers, interviewing Chinese citizens on the street and why radio is actually a visual medium.
How is reporting in China different than reporting in the U.S.?
There are a lot of differences, but one of the more telling ones surfaces when you do ‘man-on-the-street’ interviews. This is when radio reporters have the unenviable task of lugging audio equipment onto the sidewalk, pulling out a microphone and approaching random passersby with questions about current events. I stand there, smiling like a dope, asking people if they’d like to talk into my microphone for a minute or two. On an American sidewalk, my microphone and I have the power to part a sea of foot traffic. It’s as if I had a sign around my neck informing everyone I have the bird flu. When I do find someone to talk to, the conversation tends to be full of strong opinions, and oftentimes Americans will tell you long-winded (yet oftentimes fascinating) stories about the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to them.
In China, I’ve found it much easier to do man-on-the-street interviews. A big reason, I think, is because I approach strangers speaking Chinese. Many Chinese rarely get a chance to communicate with a foreigner in their native language, so some people will toss aside their inhibitions about being interviewed in order to chat. Still, I’ve found many Chinese to be cautious about expressing strong opinions, and unlike Americans they’ll rarely tell you anything too personal.
But this is why being a business reporter is an advantage. Talking about money in China is the great equalizer. I’ve oftentimes been asked how much I make from an interviewee before I get a chance to ask them the same question. I’ve found that once I get people talking about their salary, their finances, and other things related to money, the very interesting personal stories come out naturally.
Where do you see China in 10 years?
I have no idea. There are too many moving parts here to ever accurately predict what’s going to happen. I have an analogy that I often use to explain what it’s like for me to report on China: It’s like taking a photo of a racecar as it speeds by. You try to follow it with your cheap consumer camera, and you’re lucky if you can get it into the frame, because it’s moving so fast. But let’s say you accomplish that. Still, the image is going to be really blurry and out of focus. And by the time you’re able to see the photo on the camera screen, the car’s a mile down the road. China’s the fastest moving country this world has ever seen, and journalists aren’t the only ones having a hard time trying to make sense of all this change. I think many Chinese have a hard time, too.
What do Americans understand least about China?
I’m often amazed at how scary China is made out to be in the public narrative. It’s an election year and I think politicians will be using China as a scapegoat to all our problems, and they are often able to get people quite riled up about it. From all the rhetoric, you’d think the People’s Liberation Army is about to land on the shores of Venice Beach and begin an invasion. This is doing a lot of damage, I think, to the understanding of China.
However, when you look at it from the economic lens, there isn’t just one China. The way I see it, there are three Chinas.
There’s the China that many are scared of, and this is the government of China and its state-owned multinational companies that are offering newfound competition for American multinationals throughout the world. This is the China that gets the most media attention, and this is the China that politicians love to highlight to scare people.
The second China is the rising consumer base. These are the people in China’s growing middle class who are beginning to buy more and more products. This is the China that loves American products like Apple and Dell, and they’re generally curious about the United States. This is the China that wants to send its kids to study in our universities, and this is the China that will help boost the American economy.
The third China is perhaps the most important China. It’s the poor China. Roughly 400 million Chinese live on less than $2 a day. That’s 50 million more people than live in the entire United States. This is the China you never hear about in the media, yet this is the China that has the most potential power over the first China (the government), because if the government doesn’t keep this China happy, this China could make things for all the Chinas very uncomfortable.
Describe what you do all day.
It depends on the day. I usually try to get out and report as much as I can. When I do that, I’m on the road, oftentimes in smaller cities throughout the country, talking to people. I spend a lot of time in airports and train stations, and I tend to transcribe a lot of tape and write when I’m waiting for a plane or train. When I’m not on the road, I head to work to my office in downtown Shanghai, where most days I find myself filing daily news spots. A news spot is a one minute-long news story with tape from someone I’ve interviewed that day, usually over the phone. When I’m in the office, I’m writing my feature-length stories, voicing them, producing them, and uploading photos and video to our website.
How often do you get back to the U.S.?
Once or twice a year.
Anything you do first or eat first etc. upon coming back?
Whenever I return, the first thing I always do is go for a run to reorient myself and to get over jetlag. While I’m doing that, I usually marvel at how clean the air is (even in Los Angeles, home of Marketplace’s headquarters), how clear the visibility is, and how you can see actual clouds in the sky. These are luxuries not enjoyed in urban China.
What was your first reaction when you heard Mike Daisey’s Foxconn story/performance?
I thought there were some major errors in the monologue, but it wasn’t until I realized that the monologue was billed as nonfiction and had been fact checked, that I rewound it, listened again, and decided to do something about it.
Why did you come forward and point out the errors?
Once I realized that Mike Daisey had not only told This American Life these fabrications, but had also lied to dozens of other serious news outlets about what he saw, I thought I should do something. It didn’t seem right to me that this man — who obviously knew very little about China and factory conditions there, and who had not spent any serious time talking to factory workers and accurately reporting what they said — was informing public opinion about this issue.
Would you have reacted differently if it stayed in Daisey’s show and didn’t end up on This American Life?
No, for the reasons I stated above.
Has Daisey’s monologue had any positive impact on understanding Apple’s manufacturing practices?
I think his monologue has raised awareness about factory conditions in China, but it hasn’t improved the understanding of the issue. There’s a big difference. Now that more people seem to be aware of the issue, I think the next natural step if they remain interested in this, is to inform themselves as much as they can. I recommend that they read some of the great nonfiction books out there about this topic. Leslie T. Chang’s ‘Factory Girls’ is one of them. Leslie, a former Wall Street Journal Beijing Bureau Chief, spent a couple of years with factory workers both at their factories and in their home villages. ‘Country Driving’ by New Yorker writer Peter Hessler is also a great book. The third part of that book is set in a family-owned factory in Zhejiang. Peter also spent years reporting this. It’s some of my favorite writing on China, period.
What’s the real situation at Foxconn?
I think it’s difficult to say for sure what the ‘real situation’ is for a company that employs one million people and is China’s largest private employer. What I’ve found in my interviews with workers is that the most serious complaints tend to be about their supervisors. There’s a sense that many workers see the management structure at Foxconn as unfair. This tends to happen when you have 19 year-old high school dropouts from the countryside managing other 19 year-old high school dropouts from the countryside. I also heard a lot of complaints about not receiving enough overtime. Nearly all the workers at Foxconn’s Longhua facility in Shenzhen are from the countryside. They make it home once a year, generally speaking. They’re there to work, make as much money as they can, and go home.
Do you use an iPhone or iPad?
I have an iPhone.
What feedback have you received after coming forward with the story?
I’ve received a lot of positive feedback, and I’ve had the opportunity to speak publicly about this at events in California during a recent trip. It really seems people are interested in this topic, they’re interested in the workers, and that’s encouraging.
What’s on your desk?
My laptop, my phone, a microphone, and tons of tape logs, transcripts, and unpaid bills.
Should anyone feel bad or guilty for owning an iPhone or iPad?
I don’t think it’s my job to tell people how to feel.
Why is radio a good medium to tell stories about China?
Ira Glass once said that ‘radio is the most visual medium’. When you listen to the scenes and the people in a radio story, you use your mind’s eye to see, and I think that exercises a part of your brain that we don’t exercise very often. I love radio because it is so intimate, so personal. Many print reporters interview their sources over the phone, but I conduct most interviews for my feature stories in-person. There’s value to having a real conversation, of being able to look someone in the eye when you talk to them.
What’s the last book you read?
‘The Wal-Mart Effect’ by Charles Fishman. Absolutely fascinating read.
What’s the most under-covered story right now?
China’s environment. It’s covered from time to time, but never enough, in my opinion. This is potentially the most important story on our planet right now. It’s a game changer, and it impacts all of us. Up to now, there’s only one journalist I know of whose entire beat was the environment in Asia–Jonathan Watts. He wrote a great book called ‘When a Billion Chinese Jump.’ But now he’s headed to Brazil, and I’ve heard they’re not replacing his position at the Guardian, the newspaper where he works. I’m sad about that. I think the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal should have one reporter each covering nothing but the environment in China and China’s impact on the global environment. They have reporters who include this topic in their coverage, but no one to my knowledge covers it exclusively as a standalone beat. They’d have endless material, and I think they could raise real understanding and awareness about this issue.
