亚马逊回击《纽约时报》

今年8月，《纽约时报》曾刊登长文指责亚马逊存在工作气氛差、员工压力大等问题。对于此报道，后者公共关系部门负责人兼公司高级副总裁杰·卡尼（Jay Carney）于周一终正式作出回应，反驳称该报道完全是断章取义。

 

测试中可能遇到的词汇和知识：

rebuttal 反驳

portrait 人物描写

callous 无情的

obsession 妄想

anecdotal 轶事

luminary 名人

 

阅读马上开始，建议您计算一下阅读整篇文章所用的时间，对照下方的参考值就可以评估出您的英文阅读水平。

Amazon rebuts New York Times exposé（467words）

By Leslie Hook in San Francisco and Shannon Bond in New York

 

Amazon has launched an attack on the New York Times,two months after the media group wrote a negative article about Amazon's workplace culture.

 

The rebuttal,published on Monday by Jay Carney,the company's spokesman and a former White House press secretary,alleged that the New York Times journalists did not verify the stories of several former employees in their report.

 

The article sparked an intense debate about workplace practices at the Seattle-based technology company.

 

Dean Baquet,New York Times executive editor,posted a lengthy response reiterating his support for the paper's story and saying that the voluminous response it received “leaves no doubt that this was an accurate portrait”.

 

“I should point out that you said to me that you always assumed this was going to be a tough story,so it is hard to accept that Amazon was expecting otherwise,” he added.

 

Jeff Bezos,Amazon founder and chief executive,responded to the original article with an email to staff,saying he would not tolerate the “shockingly callous practices” it described.The company has been criticised in the past for its treatment of warehouse staff. It has also been embroiled in conflicts with book publishers over pricing.

 

Last week,Mr Bezos fell down Harvard Business Review's ranking of the world's top chief executives,after the management publication took into account the company's performance on environmental,social and governance measures.

 

The New York Times story focused on white-collar employees and managers. It described how these staff were also affected by Amazon's obsession with data and said the company fired the lowest performers in each team.

 

Mr Carney alleged that one of the former employees quoted by the New York Times had left after being accused of wrongdoing.Mr Baquet replied: “If we had known his status was contested,we would have said so.”

 

He added that Amazon's questions about the credibility of several of the named sources quoted in the story “did not contradict what the former employees said in our story; instead,you mostly asserted that there were no records of what the workers were describing”.

 

The public editor of the New York Times has previously written that the original article could have used more context. “The evidence against Amazon,while powerful,is largely anecdotal,not data driven,” wrote public editor Margaret Sullivan.

 

On Monday,Mr Baquet emphasised that the New York Times reporters “spoke to more than a hundred current and former employees,at various levels and divisions,over many months……In addition,we spoke to outsiders who interact with Amazon employees  —  recruiters,people at tech firms,employment lawyers —  and heard their accounts.” Several Silicon Valley tech luminaries backed Amazon after the story was published. Dick Costolo,chief executive of Twitter at the time,tweeted: “This has ‘take out of context' stamped all over it.”

 

请根据你所读到的文章内容，完成以下自测题目：

 

1.What was the Amazon spokesman's previous job?

A.New York Times executive editor

B.White House press secretary

C.teacher in LSE

D.Vice President

[1] 答案

 

2.What is the executive editor's attitude towards the rebuttal?

A.against

B.agreeable

C.satisfied

D.afraid

[2] 答案

3.What was Jeff's reaction according to the original article?

A.had a speech in public

B.went to court

C.sent an email to staff

D.published articles on FB

[3] 答案

 

4.Who supported Amazon before after the story was published?

A.CEO of Twitter

B.CPO of Twitter

C.CEO of bilibili

D.Chief public editor of FT

[4] 答案

 

 

[1]答案：B.White House press secretary
解释：Jay Carney是第29任白宫新闻发言人。

[2]答案：C.satisfied
解释：《纽约时报》执行主编迪恩·巴奎(Dean Baquet)表示，“这篇文章是基于大量的采访。任何读过这些采访内容的人都会确信，这是一种准确的描述。”

[3]答案：C.sent an email to staff
解释：亚马逊创始人兼CEO Jeff Bezos曾向全体员工发出公开信，指出其并不认识报道中所描述的那个“没有灵魂、反乌托邦、没有乐趣、没有笑声的工作场所”。

[4]答案：A.CEO of Twitter
解释：文章最后一段，一些硅谷大佬是支持亚马逊的，例如Twitter的CEO。