The Amazon Way

Morgan Peterson

Email: mp427711@ohio.edu

Twitter: @mopeeeezy

Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon

source: http://www.campuswhizz.in/cwzz/jobs/explore-the-famous-companies/amazon/

I found the New York Times article entitled “Was Portrayal of Amazon’s Brutal Workplace on Target” written by Margaret Sullivan an interesting and informative read. She discusses her views on the controversial article scrutinizing the inner workings of the corporate giant Amazon. She is candid about how on one hand she feels like the article was one-sided and too anecdotal but on the other hand she found it an informative and necessary read.

As an avid Amazon customer, some of the things stated in the article were definitely eye opening but not completely surprising. I don’t think the depiction of the company in the article was too harsh, especially if the facts check out and it’s true. I believe that the hard part about being a journalist is reporting the news that makes people uncomfortable and Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld did a good job of that.

I don’t completely agree with Sullivan’s views on the article. I believe that writers Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld did an excellent job of getting quotes, both positive and negative and leaving their bias out of the article. Despite the fact that the article was intended to be primarily negative, they still gave the company credit where it was due making it a good investigative piece.

The executive director of the New York Times, Dean Baquet shares my views as well, he wrote to Sullivan, “The quality of the reporting and writing, and the rich, subtle, sophisticated portrait that the story painted of this major, transformational company warranted that — if not bigger.” Baquet stated.
Many executives from Amazon were not pleased with the article, but it also called attention to some of the alleged issues within the company. After the article came out, Jeff Bezos, chief executive of Amazon emailed his employees that he wouldn’t tolerate the “shockingly callous management practices” that were described in the article. The New York Times did a follow-up article directly quoting Bezos response. Even though the article wasn’t an overall positive review of the Amazon philosophy, it might have showed the executives some of the flaws in their “work hard” motto, hopefully allowing them to restructure.

I feel that investigative journalism is important because if no one cares to dig deep and write about these things, a lot of big issues wouldn’t be exposed. Some of the most groundbreaking stories come from investigative journalism. If journalists are truly for the people, it’s our job to make sure the people have all of the facts, helping to make the world a little more transparent.