The tell is that FedEx calls the NYT article "factually incorrect" but never states exactly what assertions they dispute.

It's as if they want the reader and the media to infer that FedEx actually did pay taxes on billions in profit, or that FedEx actually did increase their investments as the phony rationale for the tax cut promised.

But since FedEx never actually says any of that, and instead just tries to infer it through clever wording, I'm going to trust NYT over this corporate snow job.

When FedEx twists the argument to accuse the NYT of also not increasing their capital investments, the whole thing reeks of Facebook's disinfo campaign to "deny and deflect" fundamentally factual reporting.

I guess I'm not clear on what detail you think is missing. To me, their objections and actions are very clearly worded.

I believe they pointed out that they regularly pay taxes, that the tax rate for that year was due to accelerating depreciation, and the NYT is engaged in the same accounting strategies.

Accelerating depreciation has no net tax benefit over the full depreciation period. If the depreciation period is 10 years, but they accelerate in the first year, their net tax rate is the same over the 10 years as if they did not accelerate. They are simply moving their tax burden to the future.

They also took other current expenses to charge their pension, but again, these are expenses that they cannot take in the future - they will pay additional tax on future incomes. The net is the same.

It’s quite clear that some people’s model of taxes comes from doing Turbo Tax, year after year. Even Bernie Sanders does his own taxes. A man that wants to set the tax agenda on multinational corporations.

Just because a company pays zero taxes doesn’t mean that there was any thing fraudulent going on. If there’s zero taxes there’s probably incentives, depreciating assets as you described, losses carried forward, the corporate tax cut, employee stock compensation.

This coincidentally also describes the NYTs piece which was also misleading, bordering on activism.

> As for capital investments, the company spent less in the 2018 fiscal year than it had projected in December 2017, before the tax law passed. It spent even less in 2019. Much of its savings have gone to reward shareholders: FedEx spent more than $2 billion on stock buybacks and dividend increases in the 2019 fiscal year, up from $1.6 billion in 2018, and more than double the amount the company spent on buybacks and dividends in fiscal year 2017.

edit: Note: the parent commenter ninja-edited in the word "essentially" after I made this comment.

I'd say that paragraph you quoted showcases the misleading writing very nicely.

$2.6,$3.4,$3.6,$3.6,$3.3,$3.8,$5.0,$5.0,$5.1,$5.6

Do you think the article fairly reflects the trends in the company's capital expenditures?

FedEx's lobbying efforts argued reduced taxes would allow them to increase capital spending more than they would have otherwise. Instead, they look to have stuck to their trendline - and 2019's estimated is flat.

Draw those numbers on a chart and it doesn't look like the tax cut generated much of a boost: https://marketrealist.imgix.net/uploads/2018/09/Capex-2.png?...

Article from which the chart is drawn: https://articles2.marketrealist.com/2018/09/a-look-at-fedexs...

Yes, FedEx didn't follow up with the massive new boosts they promised (besides the pension fund). However, the NYT should have included figures and stated it how you are in your comment - that growth factor is what has gone down, not the actual level of investment.

I am not disputing what you say about FedEx, I just want NYT to be more careful and precise in its reporting.

They've been building 800,000 square feet of new sort facility at IND for a year and change...

https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/01/26/fedex-credits...

https://bgabuilders.com/fedex-indianapolis-ob4-project/

It's huge and runs right along side Interstate 70, you can see it from the other side of the airport just off of U.S. 40.

I can walk to my car, drive about 10 yards out of my work parking lot and see it across the airport. It's very real and almost certainly didn't grow out of the ground on its own accord.

They're also expanding in Greenwood, Indiana.

They're also expanding at MEM.

...

https://marketrealist.imgix.net/uploads/2018/09/Capex-2.png?... indicates their spending growth has largely just stayed what it was prior to the tax changes.

The fact that they instead increased stock buybacks etc. demonstrates a point of detractors of the tax law - that it's proceeds would most likely go back into already-wealthy pockets, not capital investment. It's not unreasonable to point it out here.

Take that out & how does it look?

That is incorrect, albeit precisely what FedEx (and many other subjects of investigative journalism) would like us to believe.

When "all news is fake news" becomes widespread public perception, that public is doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite.

Does the NYT deliver higher quality reporting than Alex Jones? Yes, of course they do, but they are neither perfect nor omniscient nor unbiased nor purely virtuous in their motivations.

Let’s turn this around, shall we? When the public implicitly trusts media corporations that are operated for profit and owned by billionaires, they are doomed to authoritarian rule, most likely by leaders backed by the business elite that owns and operates these media corporations in the first place.

Implicit trust of any institution is a shortcut to authoritarian rule. And every authoritarian justifies themselves by accusing others of being a greater threat. The only proper attitude for a free people is to distrust and resist any institution that holds or seeks power, and that includes the mainstream press.

That's something that has literally never been the case. Skepticism exists on a sliding scale, and children are taught in high school how to spot a biased headline, a poor use of a statistic, and so on.

When it comes to the public's attitude toward the press, it's not credulousness versus skepticism that exists, it's healthy skepticism versus cynicism.

To wit, I don’t characterize as “healthy skepticism” the propagation of the outright lie, in this very thread, that the NYT is not a business.

You know, it's before my time, but when Cronkite suggested in 1968 that the United States withdraw from Vietnam, I believe what he said was taken seriously. I do not believe it resulted in the country unifying behind the peace movement and immediately withdrawing from Vietnam, which is the sort thing that would happen if "most people unquestioningly accepted whatever Walter Cronkite told them."

> The mainstream media is terrified by the gradual erosion of this power and is desperately trying to convince everyone that it’s better for society at large for them to hold that level of implicit public trust. This is even more true for newspapers, which have always considered themselves of higher status than television anyway.

The less hyperbolic and more accurate way to state all this is, they believe their work is important and something the public should take seriously. Those monsters.

It took a few years, but the ultimate outcome of the Vietnam War was probably sealed at that moment, and everybody including President Johnson and Walter Cronkite himself knew it.

More essential though was the unquestioning acceptance of the mainstream media's power to selectively report the facts they considered most pertinent, to decide the issues of the day by choosing what to report and what not to report, and to establish governing narratives around their coverage. There is an enormous degree of power that the media can and does exercise in this fashion. Today that power is much less centralized than it once was. I consider this a net good, and am suspicious of any nostalgia for the days of greater centralization.

> The less hyperbolic and more accurate way to state all this is, they believe their work is important and something the public should take seriously.

I take the work of the media seriously enough to be critical towards it rather than abiding by lies about how media corporations aren't actually corporations.

That's actually not something I argued, although I understand there's a subthread or something about it.

> More essential though was the unquestioning acceptance of the mainstream media's power to selectively report the facts they considered most pertinent, to decide the issues of the day by choosing what to report and what not to report, and to establish governing narratives around their coverage. There is an enormous degree of power that the media can and does exercise in this fashion. Today that power is much less centralized than it once was. I consider this a net good, and am suspicious of any nostalgia for the days of greater centralization.

I'm not sure how much I actually agree or disagree because you're being so blatantly hyperbolic ("unquestioning acceptance," etc.) about things that frankly aren't key to what I believe is the interesting point.

Decentralization and news apart from the mainstream media seems like it should be be a great benefit. Like them or not, it was never a good situation that GE owned NBC, one family owned the Washington Post, or whatever. The trouble is, one thing that has not happened has been greater empowerment of small newspapers and local journalists who are best positioned to serve their communities. They're simply being driven out of business by large companies.

On the other hand, "mainstream media" is often just code for non-conservative media, whatever exists outside of Fox, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and assorted AM radio garbage. If that's how you look at things, the "mainstream media" is definitely losing some market share and mindshare.

> It took a few years, but the ultimate outcome of the Vietnam War was probably sealed at that moment, and everybody including President Johnson and Walter Cronkite himself knew it.

Johnson made a comment to the effect that he'd just lost the war, but when it came to war fighting, Johnson was honestly quite an idiot. The ultimate outcome of the war had many more years to be determined and a lot of other people had their say, including, you know, the enemy.

Yep--in fact, it's the very same subthread you replied to.

1) Subscribe to NYT

2) Notice they are still serving you ads

3) Try to cancel your subscription

They create an "obstacle" to cancelling your subscription. The "obstacle" is you have to make phone call and talk to one of their agents who will try to keep you as a subscriber by offering a discount on the subscription.

It's a good way to extend your introductory payment plan (or close to it).

You can still cancel, of course, just be firm and say so. Not a big deal.

You don't even need to be firm or argue. I've had to cancel my NYT subscription several times over the years. Sometimes I moved to a place where delivery wasn't available. Others because I was between jobs. The people on the phone are very polite and professional. They will offer you discounts, but they won't ever give you a hard sell. At least in my experience.

Do they offer intractably complex subscriptions meant to deceive you into buy more than what you need ? No.

Do they prey on old people and talk them into services they neither use nor understand? No.

Do they call you on a regular basis to nag you about an upgrade to your subscription? No.

Do they send you mail 1-2 times a month with one of those stupid credit-card-sized cardboard ads with a deal on them? No.

Do they automatically jack-up your bill as soon as intro is over? Yes. That's about as close as they get to cable TV. It's not good, but it's not evil either. You can, AFAIK, extend a discount indefinitely by calling them up and asking for it.

Notice that so many newspapers are going out of business but the NYT is not.

That is the straw man.

The point of contention is whether after arguing that a tax cut was needed to do capital investment, did the savings from the tax cut actually go to capital investment, or merely financial trickery of stock buy backs as the critics of the tax cut predicted.

Literally everything else is a distraction.

I'd also like to highlight that as much as people fear government control of subsidized news sources - both PBS and NPR have been quite decently independent, with PBS in particular not having qualms about investigating the government when warranted.

Where'd you get that from?

So... neither substantive nor particularly entertaining. :(

It’s not going to make a dent in their budget. Any notion that a $40B company somehow is unable to make itself heard is ludicrous. This isn’t a mom-and-pop operation.

EDIT: to replies claiming it's not the same or is blackmail because it requires FedEx to spend money to respond... you do realize that it costs the NYT over $300 million/yr to produce, distribute and market their news product? (Yes, the NYT spends money on ads to get more people to read its stuff, too.)

At a corporate level trying to reach millions of people, speech isn't free for anyone. Distribution costs money, for everyone. This isn't blackmail (sheesh), it's how public dialog between companies works period. And my original point stands: both sides are mega-companies that have plenty of money to promote whatever stories they want.

I will say it one more time: the idea that FedEx, a $40B company, is somehow, in any way, disadvantaged in being able to respond, simply defies credulity.

Edit for typos

NYT sure is spending money, but it is ultimately making money by publishing this article, or else they woudldn't do it. They are making more money by making it more sensational.

FedEx would spends money to responds, ironically, they would have to spends it most probably to NYT. NYT will again spends money to publish that full page ads, sure, but they are making money by publishing it, or else they wouldn't do it either.

They aren't on equal footing. NYT makes money with that article.

That's like all those conspiracy theories about anti-virus companies putting out viruses to boost sales.

/Worked in journalism.

[1] http://tylervigen.com/spurious-correlations

The same is true here - leaving out the context that FedEx has spent ~$50b on capex in the past 10 years and recognized $8.2b of income tax expense in the same 10 year period (which is not all US fedral, and might not have been the amount remitted over that period) changes the tone of the story. Additionally, really all that is happening is that tax collections go down a bunch in one year and up for the following six years, the only gain is on time value of money)

Why should a response or dialogue have to be in print? And why should a company's defense be limited to asynchronous communication? Debate is an accepted and effective dispute resolution framework, especially in areas where truth or fairness may be nuanced and is far from black and white. (Tax policy is a perfect example that is both nebulous and politically charged.)

As arbiters and outers of wrongdoing, journalists play a critical role in speaking truth to power and holding parties to account. This does not absolve them from publicly defending their positions, or being challenged on them, however. FedEx is well within their rights in responding in whatever manner they see fit, same as NYT can agree or reject the challenge.

Debate certainly ups the ante for all involved and is an interesting escalation tactic in the current media landscape.

It's completely legitimate to hold NY Times management accountable here.

They called them on a public debate.

All speech has both subjective emotive content ("power") and objective factual content ("truth"), and the interplay between them is part of what makes speech effective. In times of hegemony, though, the "power" content of speech is downplayed. Power relations within society are taken for granted, and it's pointless to challenge them, because the best case is that your words will be discounted as crazy and the worst case is that that power will be exercised against you, potentially with life-ending consequences. Think about speaking out against a totalitarian government, or being a communist during the McCarthy era.

In times of multipolarity, the "truth" aspect of speech is downplayed, and discourse is all about power. Think of nationalism in the 1870s, or yellow journalism in the early 1900s (right as British hegemony was collapsing into the multipolar world that led up to WW1). Papers would publish plenty of stories that simply weren't true, but the point wasn't truth: it was to boost their circulation numbers and amass more power and influence in a world that was rapidly collapsing into a system of warring powers.

Trump, SJWs, white nationalists, MRAs, cryptocurrency advocates, anti-vaxxers, Russian cyber-trolls, and Democratic Socialists are all other instances of this phenomena: they are small splinter groups vying for mindshare because they see that the existing power structure is collapsing and will leave behind a vacuum, and they all distort the "truth" (which was always distorted before by power relations, but not to this extent) in a bid to gain more followers. Some corporations are catching on, and this FedEx statement is an example of this: note that they posted it as an open letter, on their own company blog, rather than as a press release. They don't care whether the NYTimes actually accepts their debate or not, they want to make the public statement to undermine the legitimacy of the NYTimes as a source of truth itself.

I'd go farther and say that it is disheartening. It also seems to be completely aligned with the post-modernist way of evaluating/describing the world.

Nothing to do with post modernism, it's a version of Marxism that is compatible with capitalism. Post modernists can't be ideologues by definition. Intersectionality is very much an ideology. People who believe that don't ask question, they do finger pointing and public shaming to try to change and control public discourse. It's very reminiscent of the soviet union era, except it doesn't come from the state but a group of people that hold a certain power of influence, ironically.

Im open to hearing an alternative argument instead of just folks downvoting. What do you think is inaccurate or misleading here?

Do you have a source for this bold statement?

The two aren't mutually exclusive. Journalists have an ethical responsibility to be honest, but outside of that there's nothing to say that a journalist cannot have a set of beliefs that shape their worldview.

In this case you aren't really accusing the NYT of being dishonest, you're saying that their honest opinion isn't ok because you have a different opinion (or that a journalist has to be void of any opinions at all). I'd just suggest you skip either that author's work or the NYT in general then, and find something more aligned to your own worldview.

As to the accusation it is "activism?" I mean, yeah, I guess. Arguing that something, anything, is wrong is activism depending on your definitions but since we haven't established that activism is a bad thing or wrong, that's not really problematic in and of itself.

IANAL, but a good example of this is the coverage of the Covington High School students.

IANAL so I don't know the answer, but I hope the answer is no. Since if the answer is yes it would allow a large media organization to thrust anyone into the spotlight and defame them without recourse as long as "actual malice" can't be established (ie the Covington High kids).

There's different kinds of bias/activism.

1. Publishing an opinion with facts (blog post/activism)

2. Publishing only the facts that support your political opinion without your political opinion.

3. Publishing all the facts but only while investigating the people you disagree with (not the people you agree with)

4. Investigating all the facts to settle publicly made allegations by politicians or political figures.

So while 1/2/3 might be seen as activism -- #4 is not. If people make the claim that the IRS is toothless when it comes to enforcement of tax collections on large corporations -- finding out the facts is a good way to help settle public debate.

Here's a snippet of the public apology the NYT published after the 2016 election. Maybe with honesty, or without fear or favor means something different to you than it means to me.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/us/elections/to-our-reade...

>As we reflect on the momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism. That is to report America and the world honestly, without fear or favor, striving always to understand and reflect all political perspectives and life experiences in the stories that we bring to you. It is also to hold power to account, impartially and unflinchingly. You can rely on The New York Times to bring the same fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.

1. Reporters and editors cannot possibly be aware of their own bias because they have their own world view, through which they perceive their own reality.

2. Because reporters and their editors cannot be aware of their own biases, fundamentally all news is biased, intentionally or unintentionally.

Your argument depends upon #1 to be True. However, people can know their biases and adjust for it. But at the NYT, editors and reporters are aware of their internal biases, so #1 is actually False.

So then #2 leads to something like #3:

3. Fox News, while intentionally biased, provides balance to the obvious left leaning bias of the NYT because of #1 and #2 -- even if they don't fully vet their stories [1].

So personally I would prefer to get my news from people that research and report facts. Facts, in and of themselves, are unbiased.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Seth_Rich#Fox_News_r...

edit to clarify: and if it is not right then it is of general interest to society and thus it is news

Edit: more to the point, what makes you identify as Fedex?

If NYT wants a law changed, they should acknowledge they are a tax advocacy group and not a news organization, and put forth arguments for changing the law. But what they're doing here is pushing a particular agenda under the guise of journalism. Real journalism doesn't have an agenda. Good journalism aims to minimize bias.

Here is what I am saying. You are not Fedex. You are not even in the same category. It is not apples and oranges. It is apples and dwarf planets. Ergo, any attempt to compare your treatment is.. just not comparable. They are literally big enough to write laws that benefit them. That is news.

Here is what you appear to be saying. We are both tax payers so it is apples and apples comparison. I mean, I use my standard deduction and NYT does not write about me...

Please tell me if I read it wrong.

edit. spelling correction

I want to be clear that my intention is not to debate tax law. I think that's irrelevant.

If the NYT wants the law to change in some way, I think that's fantastic. I welcome them to register as a PAC, subject themselves to the relevant regulations, give up their press passes, and fight for changes to the law. I think they'd be great at it, and I think they have a lot to offer the world in that arena.

I only said that it is news.

You seem to want to move discussion in a completely different direction.

It may come as a surprise to you, but even your cherished Fedex stock report is a piece of propaganda aimed at specic audience ( investors ). It even has a singular political aim in mind.

Can you guess what it is?

I welcome you to provide a different measure. In your opinion, where is the line? How could all observers reasonably differentiate between a piece of straight news journalism and political propaganda?

FedEx made specific arguments in favor of the cut to shore up support. Those talking points turned out (surprise!) to be untrue. Taxpayers of the United States have subsequently lost out to the tune of several hundreds of millions of dollars.

What part of that is not news-worthy?

If NYT believes FedEx should pay more in taxes, if the NYT wants the law changed for any reason, I think that's fantastic. I welcome them to register as a PAC, subject themselves to the relevant regulations, give up their press passes, and fight for better tax law.

To me (and the NYT) it's not okay for CEOs to lie and deceive in order to get legislation passed. Especially legislation that enriches their shareholders while hurting the average American taxpayer.

The exact amount they pay is not the issue, and we're in agreement that no laws were broken.

The issue is one of morality not legality. They deserve to be called on their BS and they were.

We have a difference in morals. You claim to have no problem with FedEx lying in order to enrich itself at the expense of hardworking regular people. I do have a problem with it. The New York Times has a problem with it. And judging by this comment section, a lot of hard working Americans have a problem with it.

There's really nothing you can say to morally justify it, which is why you keep deflecting with the "fake news", and "biased reporting" angle. That's all you've brought to the discussion. Yet curiously, you've not been able to cite a single element of the article that is false or misleading.

I'm not calling this fake news. I'm not suggesting it has any factual inaccuracies. I've offered what I feel is a reasonable delineation between straight news journalism and political propaganda. You just keep asserting you and others want to know this information without actually addressing what I'm saying.

If you disagree with me on where the line is between straight news journalism and political activism, that's fine. Can you please provide a general rule or set of rules that we can apply to all articles so that we can tell the difference between journalism and political activism?

Let's go up a few comments where you said:

>I'm still failing to see where this is "news" as opposed to "agenda."

It's right there.

>Can you please provide a general rule or set of rules that we can apply to all articles so that we can tell the difference between journalism and political activism

You made a claim that the article is "propaganda", "activism" and "agenda" (your words). So the onus would be on you to prove your claim. Or at least offer a coherent argument why you believe that. As far as I can tell, the only thing that makes this propaganda in your eyes is (a) it's from the NYT and (b) it opposes your worldview somehow.

Anyhow, I'm going to stop here with this particular thread.

I never said I felt a moral claim to the lost tax revenue. Ever. I've repeated over and over (and over) that it's the lying to the American people that I, and many others find morally repugnant. I don't know how to state it any clearer. I honestly don't. I've made no comments whatsoever of a political nature. Not one.

Is there something about disliking lying which is inherently political? I learned that lying was bad in kindergarten before I even knew what politics was.

You've already proven yourself to be arguing in bad faith with your "I'm not calling this fake news" lie (see directly above), so there's no point in continuing this conversation.

I guess liars defending liars is exactly what I should have expected.

The reality: Lower taxes increased shareholders' bottom line.

The NYT: "Hey FedEX, you lied to the American public. Now they're on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars."

Consultant32452: "The NYT is politically biased for pointing this all out. Fake news!"

Everyone else: ???

Since you have no legal or moral claim to FedEx's money, there's no news here. Your favorite political activist/watchdog group is perfect for this kind of stuff. But it's not journalism. That's the part the really confuses me. I'm not suggesting this story isn't interesting, or perhaps even important. I'm just saying it's not straight news journalism. We have different legal bodies (PACs) which are well equipped to highlight information like this and get people riled up to vote certain ways, boycott companies, etc.

Why are you so hung up on this being considered straight news? How do you differentiate between straight news and political propaganda? I've offered my suggestion. Do a basic literary analysis. If it appears the goal of the author was to inspire particular political outcome, that's political propaganda. And I'm not using propaganda negatively here.

Why are you using sneaky word tricks? I said nothing about increasing shareholder value. I clearly said "shareholders' bottom line". Or put another way, return on investment.

Please don't do that.

> there's no news here

Hardworking Americans losing billions in tax revenue due to the misleading lobbying efforts of major corporations is news. Period. I can't fathom how it couldn't be news. In any other western-style democracy on the planet it would be news.

Now, you might have an issue with how it's reported. Or believe it was only reported to serve an agenda but you can't dispute the facts of what occurred. Except to say, elsewhere on this page that "it doesn't matter" if they lied.

So, you have no issue with what happened. Others find it morally repugnant and a violation of their trust. Therefore, news.

You've dodged my very direct question so I will put it to you again. What is the mechanism by which we, the public, should judge a piece of writing to be able to determine whether it is straight journalism or political activism? Where is the line? That is the only question that matters. This is a question of literary analysis of a piece of writing, not a fact check.

For more, see my other comment. But I'm respectfully bowing out of this thread now.