‘New York Times’ Faces Backlash Over Amazon Working Conditions Story
The New York Times‘ recent piece on Amazon and its terrible working conditions was hailed as a triumph of investigative journalism and a shocking expose of a popular tech company.
But on Saturday, an Amazon employee independently challenged the article on LinkedIn. Nick Ciubotariu wrote that the article’s authors “didn’t take the time to write a fact-based article.” And journalists within the Times are divided about whether the story accurately portrays Amazon or not.
On Tuesday, The New York Times‘ Public Editor Margaret Sullivan and Executive Editor Dean Baquet released a blog post with differing viewpoints on the article. Sullivan took a more critical view, noting that it “was driven less by irrefutable proof than by generalization and anecdote.” She also admitted that “it should have provided more balance and context.”
Sullivan was not wholly critical of The New York Times story and said that no serious questions have arisen about the facts of the article. But she worried that a story filled with anecdotes would not be able to provide a reliable account of Amazon.
For example, one anecdote used in the story came under criticism. 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. The New York Times‘ version of the story portrayed Bezos as a cold, calculating machine even when he was ten years old.
But as a Forbes contributor noted, the story has been used by Bezos to note that “it’s harder to be kind than clever.” When Bezos relayed the story to Princeton graduates, he then asked them “Will you be clever at the expense of others, or will you be kind?”
In contrast to Sullivan, Baquet had nothing but praise. He noted that “newspapers don’t often do tough stories like this about big business.” Since journalists cannot file Freedom of Information Act requests with businesses unlike the government, Baquet claimed that a story attacking a business like Amazon would have to rely heavily on anecdotes.
While the New York Times may have exaggerated how bad Amazon’s working conditions are, the company is taking this story seriously. In a memo sent out to Amazon employees over the weekend, Bezos declared that “I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay.”
Bezos encouraged Amazon workers to report instances of abusive conditions to human resources.
[Photo By: Win McNamee/Getty Images News]
