Do you feel guilty about ordering stuff from Amazon during the lockdown, even as the company fires and smears workers demanding safe working conditions, and withdraws the paltry $2/hour hazard premium it paid warehouse workers?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/04/which-side-are-you-on/#tim-bray

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Do you wonder if it's OK to support a giant company whose billionaire owner is on track to become a trillionaire, thanks to the windfall revenues the pandemic have delivered to his company?

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/22/crisis-for-thee-not-me/#what-crisis

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Was your conscience assuaged by a chirpy local news report in which your trusted newscaster described all the ways in which Amazon has been a great corporate citizen and employer during the crisis?

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That "news report" was an unpaid scripted ad that Amazon distributed to local stations across America via Businesswire, which the newscasters then picked up and ran, verbatim, as if it was an independent investigation.

https://couriernewsroom.com/2020/05/26/11-local-tv-stations-that-pushed-amazon-scripted-segment/

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The stations even ran footage of Todd Walker, a journalist turned Amazon PR flack, pretending to be a reporter in one of the company's warehouses.

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Here are some stations that ran the piece without disclosiures:

WTVJ-NBC Miami
WKRN-ABC Nashville
WLEX-NBC Lexington (2x)
WVVA-NBC Bluefield, WV
WTVM-ABC Columbus, GA (2x)
KMIR-NBC Palm Springs (3x)
WBTW-CBS, Myrtle Beach, SC
WOAY-ABC Bluefield, WV (2x)

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One station, WTVG Toledo, acknowledged that the "reporter" was an Amazon employee. Some stations' news directors said they weren't told the story came from Amazon.

Bezos owns the Washington Post, a respected newspaper.

The company's shareholder meeting was this week.

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