You may be convinced of your interpretation, but it's also likely that the journalist isn't rigorous enough to notice the distinction themselves, didn't have access to perfectly comparable figures, or had a deadline to meet and cut corners because they needed to pick up their kid from school.
Never attribute to malice that which blah blah blah...
Regardless of the awareness/intent of the given journalist, I do hope that we can find leaders (whether people/orgs/software) that can help improve our information environment to improve shared sensemaking.
In an ideal world, non-rigorous journalists, arbitrary deadlines, and corner cutting because of school pickups shouldn't impact the clarity of information being shared. That's the world of today, and it leads to a very muddied/confused information environment, but I don't believe it's the only possibility for us.
But it's not.
You were correct to call out their bias and tactics, as journalists have written hit pieces on various companies in the past and have earned scrutiny over how they present data.
I don't feel like you should need to backpedal on your astute observation just because someone points out a bs excuse scenario like they might have kids to pick up from school.
It is literally a journalist's job to gather and present accurate data, hopefully without bias. I don't think it is too much to ask of them, no matter the circumstances.
The deadlines of those poor journalists—and their kids!—is hardly the main problem with the Media. But you probably already know that.
Formulation: MAX(Group A) > MIN(Group B) . I often notice that some types of groups/entities always find themselves having the MIN function applied to their case, and others always have the MAX function applied to theirs.
You are also right that deadlines/school pickups aren't the main problem with media. I don't believe that to be true, I was just using that as an example because the poster I was replying to did. When we think about what a better version of the media could look like, those shouldn't be excuses.
That little “rule” sounds so smart, huh? That people are just dumb and there is no pattern to anything. It’s all random and people are just fumbling about, doing “stupid” or “random” shit. Their mind is distracted because they need to pick up their child froms school.
But it’s not even about malice or intent. It’s about patterns and analysis of how the media operates. You observe if things are slanted in a certain way. If they give one side the benefit of the doubt while the other not so much.
It’s not about finding evidence of the inner workings/mind of some run of the mill journalist. It’s about seeing what kind of output certain outlets put out. On aggregate.
This has been done before. It can be done.
And how do you disregard such good work? By half-quoting—it’s so cliche that you won’t lower yourself to finish the pseudo-quote—some smarter-than-thou, above the fray nonsense which fundamentally confuses individual intent (i.e. “conspiracy”) with aggregate analysis, all because you got hung up on the particular-sounding “bias of the journalist”, which could originally have been meant to be illustrative[1] and could have been taken as such in a charitable reading, especially since it’s not like any of us even remember the byline of this article.
[1] Although note that the original poster totally folded in a sibling comment, so whatever…
I think we need to hold journalists to higher standard than "complete idiot".
I've noticed the same pattern, and I can't believe it's not intentional.
Maybe the blame should fall more on Vox and their work environment rather than the journalist, but we do have to draw a line somewhere on the basic standards for journalism. We don't excuse a bridge falling down or a web service failing because the engineers had to pick up their kids from school..
Journalists have to work with the information they get; they can’t force two employers to give them perfectly comparable figures. Their job is to accurately report the info they do get.
These wages aren't some super secret data point. Referencing a 2021 Reuters article as the source for Amazon wage data is an interesting choice, when you can find better comparable data by spending 5 minutes on Google.
We're dealing with uncertainty in all regards. My position is that it's best to be transparent with our uncertainty.
If the article had said "We didn't have good wage data to directly compare Walmart & Amazon warehouse compensation against each other", I would have loved it, because it'd show transparency/honesty/authenticity. Or if they did an analysis using data from job postings or wage sites and were very transparent on their methodology and admitted what you stated "These figures were taken from job postings on X.com, which can often have ranges. Consider there to be some degree of imprecision."
I totally get that it's not a norm in the media today to do that, and there are a lot of structural incentives that create that situation. I can empathize with each actor/individual within the broader system, and that they're doing their best within the world they live in.
You can't. That's why the article says "An Amazon executive told Reuters in late 2021 that the company was bumping the average starting wage for new hires in the US to more than $18 an hour" - rather than stating as fact that "in 2021 the company bumped the average starting wage...".
The greater point is about source/data selection. MAX(Walmart) > MIN(Amazon) is a weird comparison to make. And choosing to quote two completely different sources for both the MAX(Walmart) data point [resolves to $25] and the MIN(Amazon) data point [resolves to $18] is strange, and I feel should have been explained if they're going to use quotes to communicate what might be happening in objective reality.
How was Sheheryar Kaoosji, of the Warehouse Worker Resource Center, able to communicate what the max wage for a Walmart worker was, but unable to provide any comparable data point for Amazon (or it was provided, and an editor/journalist excluded it)?
Why is it best? I'm not interested in reading a bunch of gibberish disclaimer that I already know, and that all readers should know when consuming media. People can be wrong, facts are not black and white, and truth is a spectrum. It's not the job of a journalist on a deadline to spoon feed you critical thinking.
I don't know whether they teach that in journalism school. My guess is that they do, and that this type of bias only leaks out now due to the overwhelming amount of citizen journalism that social media allows.
I think the other replies to you who won't consider this possibility are influenced by trying to take down Amazon, which in my opinion they will do to themselves if it is warranted. No media push is necessary.
We still haven't found our way back to trusted sources. Some day, we will.
Turnover is the subject of the story, those two statements seem directly relevant.
Shared understanding is not and never has been the goal of journalism, possibly excluding the business press. Stories are more interesting with heroes and villains so journalists create them if necessary.
Isn’t that a good thing? What’s your complaint?
This is a common type of formulation in journalism that often reveals the bias of the journalist.
1. Walmart pays SOME workers with PAST experience UP TO $25/hr
2. Amazon's average STARTING pay for NEW hires is $18/hr
Whatever one's opinion on Amazon, when you see the two statements next to each other, it's very obvious that this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison. Whatever the future of journalism/information-sharing, I hope we leave tactics like this behind, as it does not lead to improved shared understanding.