The national press has reported extensively, and critically, on the Foxconn project. National technology site The Verge (part of Vox Media) has also noticed how local officials who flacked this project day and night are now, well, quieter.
Nilay Patel writes Let’s all watch the Wisconsin local news desperately try to get answers about Foxconn:
No one knows what’s happening with Foxconn’s promised factory in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin (my hometown!) after conflicting reports surfaced last week that construction was on hold, then not on hold, on hold again, and then maybe back on track after Trump personally called Foxconn CEO Terry Gou. We’ve been tracking the story closely, Bloomberg Businessweek just ran a cover story about it, and there’s a great Reply All episode about it as well. It’s… well, it’s a mess.
But nothing quite captures the insanity like this tremendous report from Terry Sater at WISN 12 in Milwaukee. Here are some things it contains:
- Absolutely no one from Mount Pleasant, Racine, or Foxconn going on the record.
- Mount Pleasant Village President Dave DeGroot hiding behind his door to avoid answering questions about the broken deal.
- Sater more or less vlogging from his car while driving around the Foxconn property as Foxconn security tails him.
- Foxconn security pulling Sater over and kicking him off the property after they arrive at the main construction office.
- Michael Bonn, the finance director for Mount Pleasant, telling Sater that he’s “trying to figure [it] out myself” because he hasn’t been to work in a day and a half.
When the going gets tough…the development gurus go mute.
Previously: 10 Key Articles About Foxconn, Foxconn as Alchemy: Magic Multipliers, Foxconn Destroys Single-Family Homes, Foxconn Devours Tens of Millions from State’s Road Repair Budget, The Man Behind the Foxconn Project, A Sham News Story on Foxconn, Another Pig at the Trough, Even Foxconn’s Projections Show a Vulnerable (Replaceable) Workforce, Foxconn in Wisconsin: Not So High Tech After All, Foxconn’s Ambition is Automation, While Appeasing the Politically Ambitious, Foxconn’s Shabby Workplace Conditions, Foxconn’s Bait & Switch, Foxconn’s (Overwhelmingly) Low-Paying Jobs, The Next Guest Speaker, Trump, Ryan, and Walker Want to Seize Wisconsin Homes to Build Foxconn Plant, Foxconn Deal Melts Away, “Later This Year,” Foxconn’s Secret Deal with UW-Madison, Foxconn’s Predatory Reliance on Eminent Domain, Foxconn: Failure & Fraud, Foxconn Roundup: Desperately Ill Edition, Foxconn Roundup: Indiana Layoffs & Automation Everywhere, Foxconn Roundup: Outside Work and Local Land, Foxconn Couldn’t Even Meet Its Low First-Year Goal, Foxconn Talks of Folding Wisconsin Manufacturing Plans, WISGOP Assembly Speaker Vos Hopes You’re Stupid, Lost Homes and Land, All Over a Foxconn Fantasy, Laughable Spin as Industrial Policy, Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project,’ and ‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn.’