Mike Daisey, on his own blog:

When I said onstage that I had personally experienced things I in fact did not, I failed to honor the contract I’d established with my audiences over many years and many shows. In doing so, I not only violated their trust, I also made worse art.This is not the place for me to try and explain my good intentions. We all know where the road paved with good intentions leads. In fact, I think it might lead to where I’m sitting right now.

Aww, poor baby.

Mike Daisey, for the uninitiated, is the activist stage performer whose one-man act, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs,” sought to turn the spotlight on the treatment of workers in the Chinese factories where Apple products are made. A reporter at NPR’s Marketplace discovered that Daisey fabricated his description of his trip to China and the meetings he had, despite Daisey’s insistence to attendees of his performances and journalists alike that it was true.

Now that he’s been exposed as a liar, his colleagues and – perhaps more importantly – the venues willing to pay him for his work are pulling away from him, and he is finally able to understand what he’s done.

This isn’t to diminish the very real issue of factory conditions at Foxconn and other Apple-contracted facilities. They’re certainly not ideal by Western standards.

But that doesn’t mean liars should be able to make money by exploiting people’s good will, either.