Commentary: Amazon whiffs in response to New York Times report

Amazon was not at its prime this weekend when it rush-delivered an object lesson in the wrong way to handle negative publicity — especially when the CEO of the company owns one of America’s most prominent newspapers.

Over the weekend, The New York Times published a harsh exposé that purported to lay bare a culture of workaholism that pervades the ranks of online retail giant Amazon. Drawing on interviews from more than 100 current and former employees, the article described an unforgiving workplace powered by “Amabots,” company-speak for the automaton-like state achieved by the most hardcore employees.

Such was the impact of the story that even the notoriously camera-shy Amazon made some of its employees available for on-the-record interviews. Their quotes come off sounding like airbrushed corporate-speak when compared to the harrowing anecdotes relayed by other staffers. Here’s one manager quoted midway through a section about an Orwellian “continual performance improvement algorithm” that keeps tabs on staffers.

“Data creates a lot of clarity around decision-making,” said Sean Boyle, who runs the finance division of Amazon Web Services and was permitted by the company to speak. “Data is incredibly liberating.”

But those responses don’t refute any of the facts in the story. Not once in the 5,000-plus word takeout are Amazon executives quoted on the record disputing any assertions in the report with evidence. Instead, they push back against characterizations offered by staffers or describe the incriminating anecdotes as anomalies. Here’s a sample of the non-denial denial from founder and CEO Jeff Bezos (who also owns The Washington Post) published by Geekwire last night.

I strongly believe that anyone working in a company that really is like the one described in the NYT would be crazy to stay. I know I would leave such a company.

The company line was echoed by former White House Press Secretary (and current Amazon executive) Jay Carney, who went on “CBS This Morning” to speak for Amazon. In response to questions from co-hosts Charlie Rose and Gayle King, Carney launched into a defense of the company:

Here’s my fundamental reaction to the story: I’ve been at Amazon more than five months now, but more importantly, people like Jeff Bezos, the founder, people who’ve been at the company for 10 or 15 years — don’t recognize the Amazon that The New York Times wrote about.

Carney never answers the second part of Rose’s question, which was whether he disputed any of the facts set forth in the New York Times report. Poynter has reached out to The New York Times to ask whether Amazon has taken issue with any of the reporting in the article, but we haven’t heard back yet. So far, the only correction on the story is a minor one: The paper confused which Silicon Valley startups have established a foothold in Seattle.

It’s too early to tell whether Amazon’s lawyerly responses conceal behind-the-scenes corrective action, or if the company has quietly taken issue with the Times’ reporting. But if neither Bezos nor Carney — both of whom have extensive experience working with journalists — aren’t working to correct the story or Amazon’s workplace culture, their public responses amount to a hill of Styrofoam packing peanuts.