Andrew Sullivan at The Dish rounds up opinions after the Mike Daisey/"This American Life" incident this weekend. "This American Life" host Ira Glass announced Fridsy that Daisey lied to their fact-checkers, and that they were retracting the episode of their radio show from January that included Daisey's work. On Saturday, "This American Life" devoted the entire episode to the incident.
• James Fallows assesses the damage done by Mike Daisey:

"Daisey's lying will hurt the Western press and international worker-rights groups. When they get all huffy, Chinese nationalists love to present the Western press as being irremediably biased against Chinese achievements and ambitions, and willing to pass along the most outrageous slanders about China without checking them for accuracy or even plausibility. A site called Anti-CNN is a well-known outlet for such views. This is a constant nuisance when you try to write critical assessments. Worse, it gives ammo to those inside China who want to pooh-pooh complaints about safety, pollution, working conditions, and so on. Daisey is everything they warned against, come to life."

• Felix Salmon compares the scandal to another one in the news right now:

"[O]ne of the reasons why Daisey’s show has proved so popular — his This American Life episode was the most downloaded in the show’s history, even more than the squirrel cop — is that it combined great storytelling with a feeling that this is happening now and we should do something about it. It’s exactly the same formula used by Kony 2012, a project which is equally problematic. ... The fact is that the chief beneficiary of the success of Daisey’s monologue has been Mike Daisey, much more than any group of factory workers or underground trades unionists in China. Similarly, the chief beneficiary of the success of Kony 2012 has been Invisible Children, a US non-profit which spends its money mostly on making movies."

• Jack Shafer sizes up fabulists:

"I have my theory: 1) They lie because they don’t have the time or talent to tell the truth, 2) they lie because they think they can get away with it, and 3) they lie because they have no respect for the audience they claim to want to enlighten. That would be an ideal subject for a one-man theatrical performance."

Read the full story at The Dish.