Radio's 'This American Life' retracts Apple story

CHICAGO — The public radio program "This American Life" is retracting a story broadcast in January about Apple's operations in China, citing "numerous fabrications."

The program says in a statement that Friday's broadcast will detail inconsistencies in the episode that originally aired Jan. 6 and is the program's most popular podcast.

The initial program was an excerpt from a one-man theatrical show by writer Mike Daisey. In it, he describes meeting poisoned and mangled workers at Apple's factories in China.

"This American Life" now says Daisey fabricated the workers and interactions with them.

The discrepancies were uncovered by a correspondent in China for another public radio show, "Marketplace."

“Look. I’m not going to say that I didn’t take a few shortcuts in my passion to be heard. But I stand behind the work,” Daisey told Marketplace in its story. “My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism. And it’s not journalism. It’s theater.”