BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Tag: new york times

  • Could a new day dawn at The Times?

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    Since I’ve been constantly criticial of The Times and its coverage of the election, here is a thread from the socials in which I note a Sunday morning of positive coverage of Kamala Harris leading the paper online:

    Well knock me over with a bald eagle feather: The Times leads today with positive coverage of Kamala Harris. Maybe they recognize the momentum; maybe they want that interview. In either case, I welcome this good & fair reporting.

    Elsewhere on the socials, prof-née-Timesman John Schwartz accuses me of “labored parsing of every story and hed” to impute ulterior motive. Isn’t such labored parsing what once made The Times the Times? What I seek is that they recognize what legions of their readers do.

    I struggle every day wondering what has happened to The Times; why it does what it does now. Apart from clearly campaigning to oust Biden, I do not impute motives apart from those unfortunately built into our business: a bias for chaos & confrontation, thus attention.

    I have wondered whether as a journalist and prof I might overreact to The Times’ failures — but then I see what legions of readers (apart from a few defensive journalists) say, agreeing with and amplifying my criticism. They see it, too. If only The Times would.

    It is my fondest hope that The Times listens and learns, for we need it to be better. Note I never threaten to cancel my subscriptions to The Times (and the faltering Post). They should be so lucky. No, I will stay on their ass, expecting better of them.

    You might say I’m complimentary of The Times now because it’s complimentary of Kamala Harris, whom I support. No. Its reporting backs up its presentation & there is fair criticism in it. What strikes me is how The Times could see no positive light on the left. Today it does.

    Now I can only hope that as the election draws nigh, The Times will also do a better job of seeing and reporting on the fascist storm yet threatening on the right. That is my greater criticism and I’ve yet to see constructive change there.

    With profound regret, I’ve declared The Times broken. Can it be fixed? I don’t know. And it is not alone. The incumbents of mass media are failing & falling. One advantage is that I am taking to reading more sources every day.

    I read The Times & Post but also now others (without paywalls): The Guardian, of course, plus the Sun-Times, The 19th, Talking Points Memo, The Grio, SF Standard, and others. It is time to support such new and independent journalism.

    Note well that I do not speak alone. See the quote tweets and responses to my thread suggesting Kamala Harris should bypass incumbent mass media to speak with new and independent media.

    I should add that in The Times, it takes three to make a trend, so one day does not a trend make. I am happy to note a good day and hope for more. We have 80 days to the election, so we shall see….

    POSTSCRIPT

    Well, that didn’t last long. A day after I praised The Times for fair coverage, it carps that four weeks in, Harris hasn’t written a 110-page policy document, and it has to point out that people disagree about Israel and Gaza. Regression to the mean.

  • In mass media’s death throes

    1 comment on In mass media’s death throes
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    The New York Times et al wish Joe Biden would go gentle into that good night. I wish mass media would instead. Here is a post from a thread:

    In this defensive New Yorker reaction to Joe Biden (finally) criticizing the press that has been criticizing him, Jay Caspian Kang shares an important insight about the falling power of the press. But I come to a different conclusion.

    Kang says that media are weakened and that’s what makes it easy for Trump and now Biden alike to attack them. I say what it shows instead is that as media realize they have lost the ability to set the agenda, their response is to shout louder and more often. That is what we see every day in The New York Times.

    In The Gutenberg Parenthesis, I chronicle — nay, celebrate — the death of mass media and the insult of the idea of the mass. Kang makes me see that I next need to examine mass media’s behavior in their death throes. They are not accustomed to being talked back to, by their subjects or by the public. They respond with resentment. They dig in. 

    Journalists have never been good at listening. That is why Carrie Brown and I started a program in Engagement Journalism at CUNY (now moving to Montclair State): to teach journalists to listen. In all the wagon-circling by The Times’ Kahn and Sulzberger, The Post’s Lewis, The New Yorker’s Remnick, CNN’s Zaslav, we see a failure from the top to listen to and learn from criticism.

    Kang likens Trump/right-wing and Biden/liberal press criticism but they could not be more different. Trump et al want to destroy the institutions of journalism, education, and government itself. Biden and liberals wish to improve the press. We are begging for a better Times. But The Times can’t hear that over the sound of wagons circling. 

    As I also write in Gutenberg, we find ourselves in a paradoxical time when the insurrectionists formerly known as “conservatives” try to destroy the institutions they once wished to conserve, putting progressives in the position not of reforming but instead of protecting those institutions. 

    When I criticize The Times —and Kang quotes me doing so — it pains me terribly, for I have devoted my life to journalism and long held up The Times as our standard. No more. It is failing journalism & democracy. I fear the incumbents may be beyond reform & require replacement.

    By the way, the incumbents of journalism know this. That is why they invest in lobbyists to pass legislation in New York, California, Washington (State and next DC), Canada, and Australia to benefit themselves at the expense of the media — community, nonprofit, startup, digital — that would replace them. More on that another day. 

    So I am glad that Biden is finally criticizing The Times and its mass-media peers, if not yet by name. I am glad he rejects the fair-weather platformed pundits, moneyed executives (corporations), and elites (Clooney) who reject him now. In trying to dismiss him, they only make him more progressive.

    The New Yorker headline over Kang’s column calls Biden’s criticism of the press “cynical.” It is anything but. It is an overdue and proper response to the cynical exercise of — as Kang makes me understand — the dying power of The Times et al. No one elected Sulzberger, Kahn, Lewis, Zaslav — or Remnick — to run the nation. Millions of us voted for Biden to do so. 

    Some on the socials insist that The Times etc. want Trump to win. I’ve said that is a simplistic conspiracy theory. I’ve thought they want chaos: something for them to cover. Now Kang makes me think instead they want to recapture their lost agenda and influence: their power. 

    Kang closes: “If Biden believes he is the last chance for democracy in America, perhaps he should start acting like it.” That should be said of those in charge of America’s legacy mass media: If you think you can save democracy, then start acting like it.

  • Hacking through Amazon’s jungle of coverage

    52 comments on Hacking through Amazon’s jungle of coverage
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    https://www.flickr.com/photos/pokerbrit/14846494975

    The New York Times exposé of working conditions at Amazon lacks two key attributes: context and — I can’t quite believe I’m saying this — balance.

    Like everyone in my feeds, I read the story with something verging on horror. Since then, I’ve seen many tweets presenting another perspective and just read a point-by-point rebuttal by an Amazonian.

    Where’s the truth? in the mix. Except as a reader, I had to go search for that mix.

    First, context: Last night on Twitter, I half-joked that Amazon sounded like many newspaper newsrooms:

    Jay Rosen later responded:

    You get the point: Where is the context about work as a whole? Is every office as wonderful as Google and Facebook are supposed to be? No, of course not. We all know that. So to what standard is Amazon being held? Is it better or worse than comparable and realistic (read: unGoogle) workplaces? That’s not in the piece. It needs to be.

    Now to balance. Nick Ciubotariu, an engineer and executive at Amazon, wrote a very long rebuttal on LinkedIn, which I found only thanks to a Dan Gillmor link. Amid some amusing techcospeak (an issue “gets actioned”) are clear and sincere explanations for much of what The Times thinks it has exposed. For example, the orientation at any company, taken out of context, might sound like brainwashing; that’s normal. He says that the cases of how employees with pregnancies and health and family issues were allegedly mistreated are appalling and the company must address them. He acknowledges that Amazon might have changed between its founding and his hiring 18 months ago. But he likes working there. He, like many colleagues, is attracted to tackling huge problems — and that is obviously not easy work.

    The Times talked with some Amazon employees but makes a point of saying that they were offered up by the company and so they are presumed to be like North Korean media handlers; they are to be discounted. Most of what The Times garnered from unofficial sources was negative. Most of what Ciubotariu says is positive.

    We, the readers, are left to balance these accounts ourselves. And that’s my problem. The Times should have presented enough of that conflicting evidence so that we could weigh evidence and decide for ourselves whether Amazon is hell in Seattle.

    But The Times decided that for us. It wanted to expose Amazon’s working conditions. It devoted two reporters for six months to do just that (who would devote such resource to finding out that it’s an OK place to work, if you have to work?).

    The Times had an agenda. Well, some of you might remind me: Haven’t you, Jarvis, argued that journalism is by definition advocacy? Yes, and it’s clear The Times wanted to tackle the issues that arise from such demanding work. But as a journalistic institution, The Times is still required to exhibit the intellectual honesty to credibly and fairly present evidence that counters its worldview. It is still required to give us in the public the respect and trust to make our own decisions about what it presents.

    But that’s not what The Times did. I am not doubting the truth of what The Times presented, only the selection. I am also not saying that after balancing all this, I would want to work at Amazon. I can’t stand the idea of a culture that enables an anonymous feedback system, which The Times exposes and its employee defends; I sure as hell won’t want to see that trend spread to other workplaces. I worry about a culture that can allow the cases of cold-hearted lack of empathy for employees’ lives that The Times presents, even if they are just anecdotal. On the other hand, I admire greatly the commercial and logistical miracle that Amazon has built. I love the idea of working side-by-side with people as smart, accomplished, dedicated, and passionate as the people who have built Amazon. I also read the piece worried that all this publicity would lead — Gawkerlike — to unionization, and I think that could jeopardize its growth.

    On that last point, you may think I sound like an owner. I am. I have long held a few shares in Amazon. So you should judge what I say here with that conflict of interest well in mind. You’re probably scolding me right now for not saying it at the top of this piece. You’d be right. And that is how I illustrate my last point: The Times did not say until halfway down its very long piece that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, which some say is closing in on The Times.

    The problem at a moment like this is that once one starts to believe The Times might have an agenda, one is left trying to suss out what it might be: against Amazon and its owner, Bezos, who is a competitor; against technology, a direction too much of media is taking (you should see the latest from Der Spiegel; its technopanic should be printed in purple ink); in favor of big labor? I wouldn’t be wondering that if The Times had given me greater context and balance and sufficient information to let me decide about Amazon for myself rather than having it decided for me. And that’s too bad. There is much good reporting here. There are important issues and modern-day phenomenon that deserve discussion. Instead, we’re starting to discuss The Times.

    LATER: I think I’m clear about this but let me be extra clear: I am not saying The Times has a competitive agenda against the Post and thus Bezos. I am saying that it will open itself up to such questioning by not being sufficiently transparent and not exhibiting intellectual honesty by providing sufficient balance to make clear that in the end the judgment is the reader’s.

    BEZOS RESPONSE: The letter Bezos sent to Amazon staff:

    Dear Amazonians,

    If you haven’t already, I encourage you to give this (very long) New York Times article a careful read:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/16/technology/inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-in-a-bruising-workplace.html

    I also encourage you to read this very different take by a current Amazonian:

    https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/amazonians-response-inside-amazon-wrestling-big-ideas-nick-ciubotariu

    Here’s why I’m writing you. The NYT article prominently features anecdotes describing shockingly callous management practices, including people being treated without empathy while enduring family tragedies and serious health problems. The article doesn’t describe the Amazon I know or the caring Amazonians I work with every day. But if you know of any stories like those reported, I want you to escalate to HR. You can also email me directly at jeff@amazon.com. Even if it’s rare or isolated, our tolerance for any such lack of empathy needs to be zero.

    The article goes further than reporting isolated anecdotes. It claims that our intentional approach is to create a soulless, dystopian workplace where no fun is had and no laughter heard. Again, I don’t recognize this Amazon and I very much hope you don’t, either. More broadly, I don’t think any company adopting the approach portrayed could survive, much less thrive, in today’s highly competitive tech hiring market. The people we hire here are the best of the best. You are recruited every day by other world-class companies, and you can work anywhere you want.

    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.

    But hopefully, you don’t recognize the company described. Hopefully, you’re having fun working with a bunch of brilliant teammates, helping invent the future, and laughing along the way.

    Thank you,

    Jeff