Amazon vs. the New York Times, as quoted on Twitter

It was interesting reading the back-and-forth yesterday, especially through the lens of what users cut-and-pasted into Twitter.

Two months ago, the New York Times wrote a scathing, inside look at Amazon’s work culture. Monday morning, ex-Obama press secretary Jay Carney wrote a response on Medium. “Had the reporters checked their facts, the story they published would have been… a lot more balanced, and… a lot more boring” (8 shares). Carney said Amazon provided more info to the NYT a couple weeks ago, hoping they would “correct the record.” But “they haven’t, which is why we decided to write about it ourselves” (68).

A few hours later, NYT Executive Editor Dean Baquet wrote a response to Carney’s response, also on Medium. “Virtually every person quoted in the story stated a view that multiple other workers had also told us” (6 shares). Baquet went on to say he had “no doubt that this was an accurate portrait” (5).

So then Carney went back to Medium, to get the last word. “When an anecdote or quote is too good to check, it’s usually too good to be true” (5 shares).

The Awl has a great breakdown of the spat, from a journalistic standpoint. It comes down to “media versus tech,” where “Amazon is clearly the more powerful party and is approached as such” (1 share). As they’ve grown in power and influence, “tech companies have become impatient with the press as it exists today” (7). But tech has a leg up in the long run. “Why buy the media when you can simply become its context, its location, and its system of incentives?” (3). If you care about journalism, this article articulates the accusations that journalists commonly face.

This was originally published in my newsletter, quoted.news.