Amazon chief spokesperson Jay Carney on Monday published a lengthy response to a New York Times article from earlier this year detailing an alleged unforgiving workplace culture at the online retailer.
In his remarks, which were published on Medium, Carney says The New York Times was remiss in not including information that might have balanced the piece, including a disclosure that one of the newspaper’s sources resigned after an attempt to defraud vendors.
What we do know is, had the reporters checked their facts, the story they published would have been a lot less sensational, a lot more balanced, and, let’s be honest, a lot more boring. It might not have merited the front page, but it would have been closer to the truth.
Carney’s post addresses information provided by multiple sources and says the reporters on the story didn’t allow Amazon to review critical anecdotes provided to the newspaper.
The New York Times story, which was based on testimony from more than “100 current and former Amazonians,” stirred a debate about the nature of work in hyper-competitive tech companies when it was published in August. Among other things, the article describes a employee review system that allegedly encourages competitive feedback, a workplace culture conducive to long hours and an at times callous disregard for employee welfare.
Since its publication, the article has garnered more than 6,000 comments, becoming the most-commented article in New York Times history.
After it was published, Margaret Sullivan, the public editor of The New York Times, said the article “was driven less by irrefutable proof than by generalization and anecdote.” In September, New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet praised the story, telling Re/code it was his job to “do as many ‘Amazons’ as possible.”
Before he joined Amazon, Carney was White House Press Secretary under President Obama and director of communications for Vice President Joe Biden. Before that, he was a longtime Washington correspondent for TIME.
