[FFRefresh]

>Walmart is offering some workers with past warehouse experience as much as $25 an hour. 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, attributing the decision to intense competition among employers.

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.

[swatcoder]

I upvoted this for contributing a valuable and insightful clarification about how those two statements relate, but the part where you attribute "tactics" and "bias" to the journalist has no direct evidence and reads like a political meme.

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...

[FFRefresh]

Totally fair on the implying bias strictly on the journalist (which may or may not be there).

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.

[bsuvc]

> Totally fair on the implying bias strictly on the journalist (which may or may not be there).

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.

[avgcorrection]

You went from a providing an astute observation in the first comment to providing vague platitutes about leaders (waves hands) in the next one. Way to go.

The deadlines of those poor journalists—and their kids!—is hardly the main problem with the Media. But you probably already know that.

[FFRefresh]

The content of my comments is highly context-dependent. The poster who replied that it may not be the journalist's bias which led to the formulation, was right. It may or may not be due to bias. I'm willing to cede that I do not know this journalist personally, to be able to confidently say it was due to bias. I would personally bet that there's some degree of anti-Amazon/anti-big tech bias somewhere in the chain that led to the production of this article, but it's something that's hard to know for sure. I can only observe broad trends that usually show these types of formulations always leaning in one direction. This broad 'bias' is a major reason the media has lost so much trust.

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.

[jimmydorry]

You're right in pointing this out. If it's not obvious that there is bias involved in the article, then criticism of it should include the other option of the journalist simply being incompetenct.

[koofdoof]

I think you're correct that the statement isnt necessarily indicative of the writer having a specific bias. However misleading yet provocative comparisons like that are actively incentivized by the structure of journalism at the moment. Writing like that takes less effort and research yet it gets more views and shares. So perhaps its not malice or agenda pushing, but the writer also understands that being misleading is directly profitable. Why would they bother doing the work to make a more accurate or nuanced comparison if will hinder their own interests.

[avgcorrection]

What an incredibly myopic viewpoint.

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…

[labcomputer]

> Never attribute to malice that which blah blah blah...

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.

[zaptheimpaler]

You may be right that the journalist didn't notice the distinction. But at this point 10-15 years into the age of data, I'd think that's one of the most basic requirements for their job.

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..

[Siira]

I believe in the opposite; systematic incompetence is no different from malice, and this is usually well understood by the people who have influence over the system.

[snowwrestler]

The journalist did their job by offering these statements with all the qualifiers that you used to make your comparison.

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.

[FFRefresh]

There are plenty of websites where employees share their wages/salaries, which enable direct comparisons between companies. A simple google search reveals such data. Also, for a lot of these jobs, the companies post the pay ranges on the actual job description.

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.

[simonw]

When you're working as a professional journalist, a "simple google search" isn't enough: how can you be sure that the information you are seeing on those kinds of wage comparison websites is accurate, and comes from people who genuinely worked at those companies?

[FFRefresh]

Yours is a broad epistemic question. How can you be sure of anything? How can you be sure what the Amazon exec stated in a Reuters article last year is accurate?

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.

[simonw]

"How can you be sure what the Amazon exec stated in a Reuters article last year is accurate?"

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...".

[FFRefresh]

My comment was rhetorical in response to your prior comment on saying you can't use certain data points because of uncertainty. It was about that principle. The citation of the source of data here is okay, I'm not suggesting they were wrong to indicate where the quote/data point came from.

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)?

[tomnipotent]

> it's best to be transparent with our uncertainty

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.

[frakkingcylons]

The point still stands: other employers are offering competitive wages for similar roles and are forcing Amazon to react. Otherwise Amazon wouldn’t be struggling to hire warehouse workers.

[FFRefresh]

Totally, but why do a MAX(Walmart) > MIN(Amazon) comparison to bolster that point at all? Why not exclude the comparison, since it doesn't really communicate what the actual wage options are for prospective new warehouse workers or experienced workers.

[unityByFreedom]

I read it the same way and completely agree with you. Grammar and the context in which statements are presented can be biased too.

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.

[CPLX]

Well yeah, but that's a very very direct explanation of why people might LEAVE Amazon to go work at Wal Mart, since they fit into that category of some workers with past experience.

Turnover is the subject of the story, those two statements seem directly relevant.

[whiddershins]

I don't think that formulation is misleading, it is GP who put an interpretation on it that was critical of Amazon.

[barry-cotter]

> Whatever the future of journalism/information-sharing, I hope we leave tactics like this behind, as it does not lead to improved shared understanding.

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.

[chrisseaton]

> it's very obvious that this isn't an apples-to-apples comparison

Isn’t that a good thing? What’s your complaint?