Thread by @emilygee

Since everybody's letting out their frustrations with prestige publications failing to give credit, I thought I'd share my own most recent experience: @cduhigg's XXXL piece on Amazon in the @NewYorker this week.

vice.com/en_us/article/…

So I just published a book on modern low-wage work, in the vein of Nickel and Dimed — I spent three years working in and then writing about an Amazon warehouse, a call center, and a McDonald's.

I wanted to experience the jobs myself because a lot of popular writing about what these jobs are actually like day-to-day — particularly Amazon, which has pretty tight security — is based off a really limited amount of reporting.

In July, the New Yorker's Charles Duhigg got in touch, saying he was writing a big Amazon story and hoped I'd talk to him about it. I was really flattered! I've read one of his books! I said sure, and had @littlebrown send him a copy that day.

I eventually spent about two hours on the phone with him answering questions about Amazon warehouse work. I didn't get the impression that he'd had a chance to read the book yet, because I ended up basically summarizing/paraphrasing the entire Amazon chapter for him.

A couple weeks ago, I got a call from a fact-checker. We went over some details from my reporting that I'd discussed with Duhigg — yes, there were Advil vending machines. Yes, I walked 15 miles some days (I snuck in a step tracker).

Yes, you'd get fired if you couldn't keep up. Yes, management seemed purposefully vague about exactly what "keeping up" meant to create an atmosphere of paranoia.

Yes, my trips to the bathroom were closely timed, like everything else you do in a fulfillment center. Yes, I'd known someone who drove an hour to Amazon every day because the wages there were better than a pizza place in her hometown.

No, I wouldn't say I saw people fired “because they were too old, or their knees started acting up, or they just had a bad week.” I did interview someone who said that, though, and used the quote in my book.

Uh — no, I wouldn't describe myself as a former journalist who'd briefly worked in an Amazon warehouse in 2015. Still a journalist! I have a book on all this out right now, actually — that's where all this information is coming from, after all. He mentions that, right?

The fact-checker sounds embarrassed, and says he'll definitely note the "former" thing. ...So, wait, I press. You haven't checked the title of my book — does he, uh, mention that I was working there to write a book? And that every fact you've checked comes from that book?

...no.

Duhigg had left me a voicemail saying to call him with any fact-checking concerns, so I did. I was pretty annoyed about the "former journalist" thing, but figured it was a misunderstanding.

He said he'd definitely fix the "former" thing, but that the New Yorker style guide was weird about including book titles, so he'd do his best to get a mention in there, but no promises.

I've worked at big newspapers. I've written investigative pieces similar in XXXL word count. I've actually been a copy chief. That's... not standard style guide stuff, not anywhere I've worked. Maybe it's different at the New Yorker, like their insane insistence on umlauts?

And it's not just a big magazine thing — it's totally normal to cite the source of information you're using. Look, I was mentioned in @TheAtlantic this same week, and they do a completely normal job of it — read the book, quote from the book.

theatlantic.com/magazine/archi…

So the piece comes out a few days later. I'm pretty baffled to find most of the information I'd had fact-checked with me written as unattributed general knowledge stuff, and myself quoted as an anonymous "former Amazon worker." newyorker.com/magazine/2019/…

My story isn't as egregious as the one that sparked this conversation — that involved the New York Times completely re-reporting a story someone else broke without mentioning her at all.  

https://twitter.com/aprilaser/status/1184267724748406784

(Prestige publications re-reporting stuff as if they're breaking it themselves has incidentally happened to multiple Philly journalists I know; I'd imagine writers in other smaller media markets can chip in their own stories.)

The focus of Duhigg's Amazon piece was not on warehouse conditions, and little time is actually spent on the subject. He does talk to a couple other warehouse workers, and I am briefly mentioned as a (not-former) journalist later.

But I just can't think of more than two reasons to reference me as a "former warehouse worker" — either it makes the piece read marginally smoother, or it makes the writer look better sourced than he is.

This isn't even the first time I've been cited this way, as "an Amazon worker" rather than "a journalist who worked undercover at an Amazon warehouse for a book" — it's a cheap and easy trick to make it look like you've actually gone to warehouses and found real-people sources...

...instead of googling it and then hitting someone up over twitter. I guess I'm so pissed about it because the New Yorker often publishes really amazing reporting, and I just expected better of them.

I don't even know what I'm trying to achieve, here— probably shooting myself in the foot tbh. But this has left a pretty bad taste in my mouth; it may not be a high crime, but it really is some bullshit, and I'm sick of it.

So, y'all have some stories of your own?

Ok ok so my publisher will not murder me: The book is called On the Clock, it can be purchased here or ideally at your local independent bookstore.

indiebound.org/book/978031650…

UPDATE: I went back to double-check, and this exact quote is not in my book. I think I misremembered it as such because it's still my voice paraphrasing and condensing a few different quotes from veteran Amazon workers that are in my book and/or notes.

This does not change my feelings about this situation, I just like to be transparent.

Ok guys I have heard you: I happily acknowledge that the punctuation mark that comes standard in the style guide of the New Yorker and almost zero other English publications is the diaeresis, not the homoglyphic umlaut.

Hi, @NewYorker, are you going to respond to this? @cduhigg's statement doesn't really answer my questions.