New York Times’ Takedown of Amazon Breaks Site’s Comments Record

He urges a culture of constant feedback without fear of retribution. In fact, it says it outright in one of its recruitment videos. This mode of operation works for Amazon, and its high performance drives its appeal among top engineers and MBAs, who, as the Times notes, line up every Monday to join the company. That seems unavoidable. But once that question is settled, another follows: How reliably can anecdotal evidence reveal the conditions and sentiments within a massive institution? Yet, we’re focused on Amazon because an anecdotal, contrived New Yorks Times article told us to, KIRO Radio’s Jason Rantz says.

These are basic challenges to investigative journalism. They consider the company to be an energetic and productive place to work that doesn’t tolerate the kind of mediocrity infecting many other tech giants and that molds employees with a disruptive way of thinking.

Carney added that “one of the things that I marvel at about the story is, to suggest that people should come to Amazon if they want to work hard is somehow a bad thing”.

First, the article contained several anecdotes about former and current employees who claimed to have been pushed out or demoted while going through medical problems or family tragedies. But she anxious that a story filled with anecdotes would not be able to provide a reliable account of Amazon. The conditions described in the Times piece likely have little to do with the engineering paradise of the Amazon Web Services division or its growing Amazon Studios arm in Los Angeles. “And anecdotes can be used and interpreted in any number of ways”. He doesn’t bust Kantor and Streitfeld for any errors, mind you. Kantor, a former Arts & Leisure editor, is best known for a 2012 book on the Obama’s marriage while in the White House. Amazon has never made much in the way of profit; its main competitive advantage may well be its willingness to accept razor-thin or negative margins. A certain group of people choose to work in these types of workplaces for whatever individual reward they attain. The anecdote the New York Times used was about Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos as a young man and his attempts to get his grandmother to quit smoking using data. She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. It was either a careless mistake by the paper, or a reflection of not so much factual error, but selective omission, which then raises doubt about the sources they selected.

And because that is not what a lot of workers expect – this idea that you’ll be suffocated to death with vacuous praise – this story is being framed in a way that is judging Amazon more harshly than it should be.

For readers, the Times description of Amazon’s “singular way of working” was indeed not looking so neat anymore. They call their employees “athletes”.

And the company helps them. It’s a unique form of insult to respond to somebody being brutalized by highlighting somebody who wasn’t.

In his new role as Amazon senior vice president for global corporate affairs, Carney told CNN that the article was “way off base”. “I know I would leave such a company”.

Danny Funt is a CJR Delacorte Fellow. But being forthcoming about the context of those insights would benefit from caution, too.