Amazon v. NYT: A Case in the Court of Public Opinion
This article by Tom Kelleher originally appears on OxfordPresents March 2016
If you’ve ever shopped online for a book or movie or even a selfie stick or Halloween costume, you’re probably well aware that Amazon is one of the world’s largest marketplaces for physical goods and digital products. Its founder Jeff Bezos is widely heralded as an entrepreneur extraordinaire and a visionary in marketplace innovation. The company has redefined how people buy, sell and recommend books. It has even changed how people read books (think, Kindle).
Along with its enormity in the world’s marketplace of physical and digital products, Amazon also has grown into a formidable voice in the marketplace of ideas. As such, the company invested heavily in its public relations firepower when it hired former White House press secretary Jay Carney as senior vice president for corporate affairs in early 2015. Carney came to the position with an impressive resume in journalism, too, having worked as Washington Bureau Chief for Timemagazine and as a senior political analyst for CNN.
Less than six months after Carney’s hire, David Streitfeld and Jodi Kantor published a lengthy New York Times article calling Amazon a “bruising workplace,” based on dozens of anecdotes about the harsh working conditions. One of the most damning stories was a vivid vignette from an interview with former Amazon employee Bo Olson. “You walk out of a conference room and you’ll see a grown man covering his face,” Olson was quoted. “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”[i] Several other former employees relayed tales of hostile peer evaluation systems, 85-hour workweeks, and pressure to work through holidays and vacations.
