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What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

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Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#211

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

jbapple wrote: post #126

If you worked for Amazon and you saw that Jay Carney was willing to reveal your personnel records if you talk to the media about unethical or illegal labor management practices, would it change your decision about speaking to reporters? I think we should consider the possibility that this post will be more effective at intimidating current and former Amazon employees into silence, rather than persuading NYT readers.

After having read down half the page of responses, your comment was enough to convince me to finally cancel my Prime membership.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#212

Post by Random_BSD_Geek »

hnamazon123 wrote: post #30

I recently quit Amazon. I don't doubt that New York Times purposely misrepresented or omitted facts to make this story. Their stories tend to be very agenda driven and the facts tend to be subservient to the narrative, a policy which is deemed acceptable because it "starts a conversation" or the story is "probably true for someone". This is typical of the left wing. However, I did in fact have an absolutely awful exp…

Long before the NYT article came out I had been hearing stories like this from ex-Amazon employees. This is only anecdotal evidence, but it's the same basic anecdote again and again. The NYT article may be many sensationalized and the characters in it may not be ideal people, but the story's core message is one I've heard from a diverse set of people in a diverse set of circumstances. There seems to be a kernel of truth in there.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#213

Post by hsod »

marcosdumay wrote: post #171
jessriedel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I remarked when it first came out, NYTimes article was almost completely anecdotal. That's not damning, but it does require you to trust the reporters to distill a large complicated mess to representative pieces. What part of Carney's piece do you think similarly depends on us trusting him? Do you think he fabricated the email from Kantor? Do you think he's outright lying about the context of Olson's dismissal to…

You know, the bias against anecdotal evidence is great and everything, but it only applies if somebody somewhere has a credible anecdote opposite to the claims. Otherwise, it's as good as data. So, look at the ex-employees opinions, and see if there's one. (And no, PR pieces are not credible.)

Do you think it would be difficult to find credible anecdotes of Amazon employees having positive experiences?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#214

Post by hnamazon123 »

ska wrote: post #133
hnamazon123 wrote: post #30

I recently quit Amazon. I don't doubt that New York Times purposely misrepresented or omitted facts to make this story. Their stories tend to be very agenda driven and the facts tend to be subservient to the narrative, a policy which is deemed acceptable because it "starts a conversation" or the story is "probably true for someone". This is typical of the left wing. However, I did in fact have an absolutely awful exp…

Not sure if you are aware of this, but statements like: "This is typical of the left wing." Can at best undermine whatever point you are trying to make.

That was in fact a point I was making.

Journalists lying to support a narrative is an extremely damaging trend that has taken hold on the left and it should be pointed out whenever it happens.

This of course happens on the right but it is not moralized or justified in the same way.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#215

Post by roymurdock »

lpsz wrote: post #62

One can like or hate Amazon, and it may or may not be a crappy place to work. That said, it sounds like NYT (a newspaper of record, btw) did more than reasonable selective reporting, to evoke certain feelings in the readers, to get clicks, to start a conversation, or what the reason may be. And it's lousy to see this in modern news reporting. Even the respectable publications err on the side of sensationalism, and it…

Reuters. They're also the most boring/uninformative.

Al Jazeera, The Economist, Bloomberg, and Quartz have well-researched and relevant stories but they usually come with a bias.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#216

Post by oh_sigh »

russelluresti wrote: post #178

I love how the start of this article reads like something out of Character Assassination 101. Step 1: start by bringing up something negative about a person that has absolutely NOTHING to do with the issue at hand. Okay, so the guy resigned because he did something bad. How does that make what he experienced while there not true? Oh, that's right, it doesn't. And the admission of fraud isn't a "crucial piece of conte…

How would you be able to sue someone who said that they saw a lot of people crying at their desk? How could you prove that didn't happen?

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#217

Post by numair »

If you're hiring in tech right now, you have to REALLY love Amazon for doing this. Basically, what they are saying is, if you speak out about the emotional hell of working for them, they will attempt to publicly humiliate you to make themselves look better.

You're going to go through hell working for them, and you're going to go through hell if you speak out after you leave. Now, they might think this is a winning strategy for them, but in fact the logical conclusion for potential hires is -- stay away from Amazon, because you'll hate it, and then they will ruin your reputation if you speak out. Which is really helpful for everyone else who's hiring right now, because intelligent people paranoid about their reputation will steer clear of any potential Amazon interviews.

Their PR guy doesn't understand that he just cost his employer an entire generation of talented engineers. Oh well, this is great for everyone else.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#218

Post by Nadya »

vidarh wrote: post #208
Nadya wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking the NYT isn't left-wing shows more how far left you must stand. Even the NYT calls itself liberal/left. Even after 11 years - and as an independent - I see the NYT as decidedly left. >“Of course it is....These are the social issues: gay rights, gun control, abortion and environmental regulation, among others. And if you think The Times plays it down the middle on any of them, you’ve been reading the paper wi…

Maybe if you specified it being by "US standards". A lot of us live in places where NYT would be seen as quite right wing.

The Washington Post ranks it left-leaning up there with Al Jeezera which is so far left I can't stand to read it.

>A lot of us live in places where NYT would be seen as quite right wing.

Sweden? Half joking, but the "standing so far left that even the left looks right" is something I mentioned in another reply. I don't think being an extreme-left makes slight-left any less left. I don't feel it is a Fox News "Liberal in name only" scenario. Even I can see the conservative slants on talking points in Fox news.

[0] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2014/10/21/le...

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#219

Post by dragonwriter »

hnamazon123 wrote: post #214
ska wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if you are aware of this, but statements like: "This is typical of the left wing." Can at best undermine whatever point you are trying to make.

That was in fact a point I was making. Journalists lying to support a narrative is an extremely damaging trend that has taken hold on the left and it should be pointed out whenever it happens. This of course happens on the right but it is not moralized or justified in the same way.

> Journalists lying to support a narrative is an extremely damaging trend

"Trend" implies a kind of special currency for which I see no evidence; its a "trend" as old as journalism itself. But, yes, its a bad thing.

> that has taken hold on the left

I see no evidence that this is particularly true such that claiming it is a trait of the left, rather than a common feature not especially associated with the left, is anything but a dishonest distortion to support a narrative.

> This of course happens on the right

Indeed.

> but it is not moralized or justified in the same way.

The claim that there is some significant difference here that is worthy of attention desperately could use some support.

Re: What The New York Times Didn’t Say About Amazon

#220

Post by cwilkes »

jessriedel wrote: post #209
cjbprime wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good question. Let me see the original article: > Bo Olson was one of them. He lasted less than two years in a book marketing role and said that his enduring image was watching people weep in the office, a sight other workers described as well. If other workers described the same sight, I don't think his input's important enough to require personal credibility, so I'm not too concerned. But the use of "laste…

I've heard comments from a dozen ex-Amazon employees on HN, in this thread and in the one back on the original NY Times article. The large majority of them said the anecdotes described by the article were unrepresentative of their time at Amazon.

I've heard comments from a dozen ex-Amazon employees on HN, in this thread and in the one back on the original NY Times article. The large majority of them said the anecdotes described by the article were unrepresentative of their time at Amazon.

Shouldn't that point to a problem of the HN crowd being homogeneous/type-A personalities and not representative of what most people see at Amazon?

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