Attacks against Amazon fueled by shoddy reporting

The Amazon attacks are getting out of hand and the way it’s being spun to generate more clickable content for websites, more eyes on silly news reports, and radio reports is starting to bug me.

It’s bothering me, not just because I’m a fan of Amazon and love to support local companies, especially ones meaningful to the economy, but because most of the story is essentially being pushed via inconsistent anecdotes and really shoddy, meaningless data points.

The entire conversation was fueled by a co-authored article in the New York Times. A really, really, really long article that was light on sourced-materials and heavy on anecdotes, much of which was anonymous.

“One of the most fascinating beliefs at Amazon, is that being sort of socially cohesive and making people feel good does not always produce the best results,” co-author Jodi Kantor told CBS. “So there is a culture of tough criticism there.”

And because that is not what a lot of workers expect &#8212 this idea that you’ll be suffocated to death with vacuous praise &#8212 this story is being framed in a way that is judging Amazon more harshly than it should be.

For one, the article didn’t appear to really represent Amazon in a fair way. I’ll fight Kantor’s anecdotes with other anecdotes from people on the record, willing to put their name and face to the comments.

Aaron Kerson told KIRO TV, “It’s been super enjoyable” and been a “very supportive environment.”

“I was blown away by what I read,” he added.

And not just that, an independent editor with the New York Times is going after the story, arguing it’s hardly great journalism. Margaret Sullivan wrote: “The evidence against Amazon, while powerful, is largely anecdotal, not data-driven. And anecdotes can be used and interpreted in any number of ways … For such a damning result, presented with so much drama, that doesn’t seem like quite enough.”

And this whole thing started an equally spurious debate over whether or not tech workers, in general, are unhappy.

In a KING 5 report, we’re told they are. They quote a study by TINYpulse, a Seattle startup that surveys workers. They looked into more than 5,000 tech workers who were asked to rate how happy they were, but only 19 percent said they were happy.

“So they’re actually less happy as a group, despite all these positive things they have going for them,” the CEO of TINYPulse told KING 5.

I gotta say, even though 19 percent is obviously low, can we give you some context? All other workers rated their happiness at 22 percent, so it’s not like there’s a huge disparity between unhappy techies and super happy accountants.

It turns out, everyone is miserable. Yet, we’re focused on Amazon because an anecdotal, contrived New York Times article told us to.