Apple & Foxconn take a radio reporter on an iPad factory tour

The re-burnishing of Apple's corporate image continues

Photo: Rob Schmitz/Marketplace

Rob Schmitz gets his reward this week.

The China correspondent for American Public Media's Marketplace -- whose reporting exposed the lies in Mike Daisey's The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs and who joined Ira Glass last month in Daisey's public humiliation on This American Life -- was given an exclusive tour inside an iPad factory, courtesy of Foxconn and Apple (AAPL) public relations.

He's the first public media reporter -- and only the second journalist after ABC's Bill Weir -- to gain access to a Foxconn factory floor.

Schmitz' radio reports can be heard starting Monday, April 9, on your local public radio station (or on Marketplace's special page on the Apple Economy.)

Meanwhile, Schmitz has been writing about the tour on his reporter's notebook blog, and Marketplace has posted a couple of teasers: A 3:30-minute radio interview and a 20-second YouTube clip of iPads with their innards exposed. (see below)

Apple will be pleased that Schmitz describes Foxconn's factory city as having the feel of a college campus -- with "dorm buildings and basketball courts and swimming pools and things like that" -- and that he contradicts a New York Times correspondent's claim that workers spend spend long hours each day either standing or perched uncomfortably on stools. At this factory, at least, everybody sits on stools that have backs.

But Schmitz also airs some of the workers many complaints -- that the work of assembling iPads by hand is repetitive and mind-numbing, that favoritism among the supervisors is rampant, that they have been forced to work when they are sick, that they're sometimes not allowed to bill for overtime.

Most damning: That the raises they were promised in March -- and which were widely publicized in U.S. media -- still haven't been paid.

Below: Schmitz' YouTube video.

Posted in: Apple, China, Foxconn, iPad, Ira Glass, Marketplace, Mike Daisey, New York Times, Rob Schmitz, Steve Jobs, Tablets, This American Life

• Today in Tech: The 'partially fabricated' iPad factory interview

  Fortune's curated selection of tech stories from the weekend. Sign up to get the round-up delivered to you each and every day.

  * Apple (AAPL) is holding a conference call later this morning to discuss what the company intends to do with its roughly $100 billion in cash. (Fortune)

  * Late last week, the highly-respected radio show This American Life announced it was retracting an episode it aired about a Foxconn iPad factory because one source, off-Broadway performer MORE

  JP Mangalindan, Writer - Mar 19, 2012 3:30 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Esther Dyson, Federal Aviation Administration, Foxconn, iPad, Mike Daisey, This American Life

• Apple and the Daisey affair

  Why did the company keep its silence, when it knew a year ago what we know now? 

  Mike Daisey began performing his off-Broadway monologue "The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" in January 2011. The show, which cast a harsh light on the working conditions in the Chinese factories that produce nearly half of the world's electronic devices, was presented as fact -- a description of what Daisey saw first MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 18, 2012 8:34 AM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Charles Duhigg, China, iPad, Ira Glass, Mike Daisey, Mobile, New York Times, Steve Jobs, Tablets, This American Life, Tim Cook

• What were the 'falsehoods' in Mike Daisey's Apple show?

  A monologist who shined a harsh light on Apple has himself come under scrutiny

  "Daisey lied to me," wrote This American Life executive producer Ira Glass Friday as he announced that his radio show was withdrawing its most popular episode -- an excerpt of Mike Daisey's off-Broadway show about Apple's (AAPL) labor practices in China -- and canceling a live presentation of Daisey's "The Agony and the Ecstacy of Steve Jobs" MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 16, 2012 4:28 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, China, Foxconn, Ira Glass, Mike Daisey, New York Times, This American Life, Tim Cook

• Apple factory inspections turn up scores of labor violations

  An addendum discloses for the first time the names of 156 Apple suppliers

  Apple's (AAPL) sixth annual "supplier responsibility" report is sure to be closely read by both critics and competitors.

  For one thing an addendum to the report lists for the first time the names of Apple's major subcontractors -- 156 companies, many in the Far East, representing 97% of the company's supply chain. The list is available here for anyone MORE

  Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 13, 2012 1:34 PM ET
  Posted in: Apple, Fair Labor Assocation, Fair Labor Association, Far East, Foxconn, Human rights, Labor, Labor relations, Mike Daisey, supply chain, This American Life, Tim Cook, Underage workers