亞馬遜回?fù)簟都~約時(shí)報(bào)》

今年8月，《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》曾刊登長(zhǎng)文指責(zé)亞馬遜存在工作氣氛差、員工壓力大等問題。對(duì)于此報(bào)道，后者公共關(guān)系部門負(fù)責(zé)人兼公司高級(jí)副總裁杰·卡尼（Jay Carney）于周一終正式作出回應(yīng)，反駁稱該報(bào)道完全是斷章取義。

 

測(cè)試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識(shí)：

rebuttal 反駁

portrait 人物描寫

callous 無情的

obsession 妄想

anecdotal 軼事

luminary 名人

 

閱讀馬上開始，建議您計(jì)算一下閱讀整篇文章所用的時(shí)間，對(duì)照下方的參考值就可以評(píng)估出您的英文閱讀水平。

Amazon rebuts New York Times exposé（467words）

By Leslie Hook in San Francisco and Shannon Bond in New York

 

Amazon has launched an attack on the New York Times,two months after the media group wrote a negative article about Amazon's workplace culture.

 

The rebuttal,published on Monday by Jay Carney,the company's spokesman and a former White House press secretary,alleged that the New York Times journalists did not verify the stories of several former employees in their report.

 

The article sparked an intense debate about workplace practices at the Seattle-based technology company.

 

Dean Baquet,New York Times executive editor,posted a lengthy response reiterating his support for the paper's story and saying that the voluminous response it received “l(fā)eaves no doubt that this was an accurate portrait”.

 

“I should point out that you said to me that you always assumed this was going to be a tough story,so it is hard to accept that Amazon was expecting otherwise,” he added.

 

Jeff Bezos,Amazon founder and chief executive,responded to the original article with an email to staff,saying he would not tolerate the “shockingly callous practices” it described.The company has been criticised in the past for its treatment of warehouse staff. It has also been embroiled in conflicts with book publishers over pricing.

 

Last week,Mr Bezos fell down Harvard Business Review's ranking of the world's top chief executives,after the management publication took into account the company's performance on environmental,social and governance measures.

 

The New York Times story focused on white-collar employees and managers. It described how these staff were also affected by Amazon's obsession with data and said the company fired the lowest performers in each team.

 

Mr Carney alleged that one of the former employees quoted by the New York Times had left after being accused of wrongdoing.Mr Baquet replied: “If we had known his status was contested,we would have said so.”

 

He added that Amazon's questions about the credibility of several of the named sources quoted in the story “did not contradict what the former employees said in our story; instead,you mostly asserted that there were no records of what the workers were describing”.

 

The public editor of the New York Times has previously written that the original article could have used more context. “The evidence against Amazon,while powerful,is largely anecdotal,not data driven,” wrote public editor Margaret Sullivan.

 

On Monday,Mr Baquet emphasised that the New York Times reporters “spoke to more than a hundred current and former employees,at various levels and divisions,over many months……In addition,we spoke to outsiders who interact with Amazon employees? — ?recruiters,people at tech firms,employment lawyers — ?and heard their accounts.” Several Silicon Valley tech luminaries backed Amazon after the story was published. Dick Costolo,chief executive of Twitter at the time,tweeted: “This has ‘take out of context' stamped all over it.”

 

請(qǐng)根據(jù)你所讀到的文章內(nèi)容，完成以下自測(cè)題目：

 

1.What was the Amazon spokesman's previous job?

A.New York Times executive editor

B.White House press secretary

C.teacher in LSE

D.Vice President

[1] 答案

 

2.What is the executive editor's attitude towards the rebuttal?

A.against

B.agreeable

C.satisfied

D.afraid

[2] 答案

3.What was Jeff's reaction according to the original article?

A.had a speech in public

B.went to court

C.sent an email to staff

D.published articles on FB

[3] 答案

 

4.Who supported Amazon before after the story was published?

A.CEO of Twitter

B.CPO of Twitter

C.CEO of bilibili

D.Chief public editor of FT

[4] 答案

 

 

[1]答案：B.White House press secretary
解釋：Jay Carney是第29任白宮新聞發(fā)言人。

[2]答案：C.satisfied
解釋：《紐約時(shí)報(bào)》執(zhí)行主編迪恩·巴奎(Dean Baquet)表示，“這篇文章是基于大量的采訪。任何讀過這些采訪內(nèi)容的人都會(huì)確信，這是一種準(zhǔn)確的描述。”

[3]答案：C.sent an email to staff
解釋：亞馬遜創(chuàng)始人兼CEO Jeff Bezos曾向全體員工發(fā)出公開信，指出其并不認(rèn)識(shí)報(bào)道中所描述的那個(gè)“沒有靈魂、反烏托邦、沒有樂趣、沒有笑聲的工作場(chǎng)所”。

[4]答案：A.CEO of Twitter
解釋：文章最后一段，一些硅谷大佬是支持亞馬遜的，例如Twitter的CEO。