These are OK:

• Telling a true story, with objectivity and accuracy. (Documentary.)

• Telling a story that’s not entirely true under the pretense of accuracy, or while obscuring its nature as fiction. (Mockumentary: This Is Spinal Tap. Exit Through the Gift Shop.)

• Telling a story that’s not entirely true, but that concerns real people and events with details changed or fabricated to serve a dramatic purpose. (Docudrama: The Social Network. HBO’s Rome. Historical fiction. Gonzo journalism.)

This is not OK:

• Telling a story that’s not entirely true, but that concerns real people and events with details changed or fabricated and representing it as truth. (We call this propaganda.)

Mike Daisey could have performed a monologue about going to Taiwan to visit the Wolfconn factory where they make the Orange ePhone. He could have played a character not named Mike Daisey, or he could have presented his story as “inspired by real events” rather than as some new form of investigative theater. The artistic value of the piece would have been the same, though it may have received less attention. But instead, Daisey put himself in the story, he made up stuff about China and Apple and Foxconn, and then, offstage, he told everyone it was objectively true.

Daisey’s defense echoes Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck: he’s an entertainer, not a journalist. Sorry, Mike. You’re a propagandist, whether you meant to be one or not.

And now I’m afraid the aspects of the story that are true won’t be heard.