I’m going to defend this article. I do think the headline has too much hyperbole but the point he makes is a good one: Amazon’s PR department made a claim and

I’m going to defend this article. I do think the headline has too much hyperbole but the point he makes is a good one: Amazon’s PR department made a claim and papers just ran with that claim sight unseen. What makes this a bigger issue than simple fact checking is that the claim is coming from Amazon’s PR department which has every reason to exaggerate and the claim is unverifiable by the media. So while a normal fact checking error involves the press not checking out what they believe to be true this situation involves the press publishing something that is very likely false and which we know they couldn’t check. So while it seems like an attack on Amazon (which would be out of line since their PR is just doing what they’re supposed to) it’s really an attack on sloppy journalism.