So what? What's the point of these articles? You could write the same about anything."I cleaned houses for a week and it was a nightmare", "I worked as a store clerk for a week and it was a nightmare"...
This is cheap click-bait journalism trying to get on the wave of writing something about Amazon labor conditions.
Modern American journalism is a joke. Many things in this country are wrong and people can and should rightfully complain/voice their concerns about those things, but this type of journalism is just the equivalent of setting a house on fire just to have the exclusive that you were the one who covered it first. How can we trust any news outlet right or left, if their motivation is only just clicks and impressions?
The difference is that Amazon is crushing local store retail everywhere it does business, which is everywhere, and spends large amounts of effort on brand management to softpedal the fact that this domination is largely thanks to its ability to squeeze more from its labor force. We'll leave aside how this crushing of local retail was also aided by its ability to avoid local taxes for many years while it was growing. All of this makes it very fair game for criticism, especially when Amazon touts the "great earnings" of being a freelance driver for them.
If there was some giant corporation that was dominating house cleaning nationally and touting the great pay of cleaning toilets for them as a freelancer, that would certainly warrant some inspection, too.
Amazon is crushing local store retail everywhere it does business
Around here the local retail businesses Amazon is crushing are owned by large corporations, who previously put the small, independent retailers out of business decades ago.
The same way Netflix put Blockbuster out of business, who put the small, independent video renters out of business long before.
A lot of people don’t necessarily know about the working conditions of these employees. It’s perfectly in line with the purpose of journalism to report on such things. In a time past it might have been an article about the conditions faced by coal miners. Or lax conditions at an assembly of plant. Etc.
And actually checking it out first hand seems like a pretty good effort at journalism as opposed to just writing a "think piece" from the comfort of the news room.
I liked the article. I didn't know about Amazon Flex and I was happy to learn how it works. The title is clickbaity, but the article is fairly nuanced. For example, she talks about a few other workers who don't seem to mind the job.
I don't see anything wrong about a first-hand report about horrible working standards. I fail to see how you can call covering this important issue "setting a house on fire".
This is cheap click-bait journalism trying to get on the wave of writing something about Amazon labor conditions.
Modern American journalism is a joke. Many things in this country are wrong and people can and should rightfully complain/voice their concerns about those things, but this type of journalism is just the equivalent of setting a house on fire just to have the exclusive that you were the one who covered it first. How can we trust any news outlet right or left, if their motivation is only just clicks and impressions?