Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#41

Post by downerending » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #34

throwawaysea wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very much by design, in order to paint a certain picture, generate outrage, and ultimately clicks. Recall when the James Damore story was breaking? Many outlets like Motherboard (owned by Vice, authors of this story) circulated quotes and even modified documents that didn't show the full list of research references quoted by Damore, in an attempt to paint a certain picture. Unfortunately this is the low bar se…

> Unfortunately this is the low bar set by a lot of modern journalism. We need a way out of it back to neutral, factual reporting. Creating fact focused journalism is a laudible goal but I'd be curious of what specific time in history you think that this was generally the case?

Not OP, but it was my impression that quality journalism was generally the case in the 1980s (in the US at least). What I was reading then certainly seemed to be. Separation of church and state was taken very seriously.

These days, you can't start with the assumption that a story is written to J standards. Rather, you need to start with the assumption that it's pushing narrative, and hope to be surprised.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#42

Post by Ididntdothis » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:00 PM UTC

notJim wrote: post #22

tw04 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's an SVP at Amazon... what does being an "Obama-era staffer" have to do with him supporting the company currently paying his paycheck? Not to mention he was Press Secretary for Obama, played literally no role in policy.

The democrats are/were historically the pro-worker party. Yet here we have a major player from a recent administration managing a PR strategy opposing worker organizing efforts. It should make one question whether that party is still run by people who support workers.

"The democrats are/were historically the pro-worker party."

This hasn't been true for a few decades. they are now the party of the well educated professional class.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#43

Post by MattGrommes » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:02 PM UTC

Amazon really could be just as big as they are without going down the Walmart route of being actively shitty / evil. It sucks that they're choosing not to do that.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#44

Post by ahelwer » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:03 PM UTC

_9vpl wrote: post #39

throwawaysea wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very much by design, in order to paint a certain picture, generate outrage, and ultimately clicks. Recall when the James Damore story was breaking? Many outlets like Motherboard (owned by Vice, authors of this story) circulated quotes and even modified documents that didn't show the full list of research references quoted by Damore, in an attempt to paint a certain picture. Unfortunately this is the low bar se…

I don't know why you're getting down-voted. Must be people that've never read about mass media in Manufacturing Consent.

Have you? That book was about how the pro-corporate media portray various regions & people so as to drum up support for war. This situation is roughly the opposite of that.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#45

Post by emmelaich » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:04 PM UTC

ahelwer wrote: post #11

The quote from Zapolsky is especially funny, because it exactly follows the PR strategy outlined in the leak notes the paragraph prior. What an incredibly fake, dishonest person. Not really the best candidate to be calling a union organizer "not smart, not articulate".

Funny thing, people using the word "articulate" are generally misusing it!

They mean eloquent, not "articulate".

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#46

Post by michaelsitver » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:05 PM UTC

tw04 wrote: post #27

notJim wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The democrats are/were historically the pro-worker party. Yet here we have a major player from a recent administration managing a PR strategy opposing worker organizing efforts. It should make one question whether that party is still run by people who support workers.

But he wasn't a "major player" - he was a press secretary. While we can assume he's a Democrat, the role has nothing to do with policy and more-often-than-not is filled by someone who's just good at being a flak jacket. Scaramucci was Trump's Press Secretary - he also worked for the Obama and Clinton campaigns. Claiming his current worldview is in any way reflective of the Obama Administration is a reach... at best.

Scaramucci was his comms director. Big difference. The position of press secretary is one of the most important in the West Wing (It's been diminished a bit in recent years, but there is absolutely a policy component).

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#47

Post by monocasa » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:09 PM UTC

Mizza wrote: post #4

A really disgusting but predictable thing to fall out of this whole fiasco is to watch Obama-era staffers aggressively side with management against labour: https://twitter.com/JayCarney/status/1245474780746330119

I mean, yeah, the Obama administration was hardly pro labor.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#48

Post by koheripbal » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

DubiousPusher wrote: post #34

throwawaysea wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very much by design, in order to paint a certain picture, generate outrage, and ultimately clicks. Recall when the James Damore story was breaking? Many outlets like Motherboard (owned by Vice, authors of this story) circulated quotes and even modified documents that didn't show the full list of research references quoted by Damore, in an attempt to paint a certain picture. Unfortunately this is the low bar se…

> Unfortunately this is the low bar set by a lot of modern journalism. We need a way out of it back to neutral, factual reporting. Creating fact focused journalism is a laudible goal but I'd be curious of what specific time in history you think that this was generally the case?

The 1980's had excellent investigative journalism.

Journalists these days limit their fact-finding to what tweets they can dig up.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#49

Post by glitcher » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

Pfhreak wrote: post #28

throwawaysea wrote: post #21

This article's title is sensationalist. Based on the article's content itself, there doesn't seem to be anything in here about "smearing" at all. Definition from https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/smear... : "to publicly accuse someone of something unpleasant, unreasonable, or unlikely to be true in order to harm their reputation" Second definition from https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/sm…

> Lastly, everyone seems to ignore that this employee violated a direct work order to not come on site... Keep asking why. Why was this worker ordered to stay home. Was it because he had a brief, 5 minute contact with a covid-19 patient? Other news outlets say that Smalls was unique in his being sent home. Or maybe was it because he was pushing for a union and the company wanted to find a way to keep him out. Given t…

The arguments that Smalls was singled out and that it was already 18 days past his contact seem like notable things to look into further.

The "5 minute" contact argument doesn't make any sense to me, and only works to weaken his case. To my knowledge there is no minimum time requirement for virus transmission, so this argument comes across as naive.

Re: Leaked Amazon memo details plan to smear fired warehouse organizer

#50

Post by DubiousPusher » Thu, Apr 02, 2020, 9:13 PM UTC

downerending wrote: post #41

DubiousPusher wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Unfortunately this is the low bar set by a lot of modern journalism. We need a way out of it back to neutral, factual reporting. Creating fact focused journalism is a laudible goal but I'd be curious of what specific time in history you think that this was generally the case?

Not OP, but it was my impression that quality journalism was generally the case in the 1980s (in the US at least). What I was reading then certainly seemed to be. Separation of church and state was taken very seriously. These days, you can't start with the assumption that a story is written to J standards. Rather, you need to start with the assumption that it's pushing narrative, and hope to be surprised.

I think you should consider the possibility that the news wasn't necessarily any better just more people had faith in a few sources such as broadcast news and national papers, leading to less contention of the facts.