It was nice of the New York Times to publish Amazon's press release as an article.
I just read the article and it's nothing like a press release.
Yes, it's announcing this new product, but that's because this is a genuinely newsworthy entrance of Amazon into this space.
And the article contains lots of context and comparisons that, you know, is what reporting is about and what press releases aren't.
So what's the purpose of your comment? Do you think newspapers shouldn't report news? Or how would you write the article for this story instead? What is your actual criticism here?
* Lists the features of Q as described by Amazon, without commentary.
* Exclusively and uncritically quotes an Amazon executive.
* Mentions other, competing products only as a lead-in to how Q is allegedly superior, without any substantive comparison.
* Was published only a couple hours after Amazon's actual press release[1], so it's not like the NYT had time to do any real work.
* Briefly mentions other AI-related Amazon activities announced in other press releases today[2], again without commentary.
* Features no third-party expertise or independent research to provide context for the core claim, which is that addressing security and privacy concerns will convince organizations to allow chatbots to access their data, and (critically) that it is feasible for Amazon to provide this feature.
* Makes no mention of why it might have taken Amazon longer than other companies to announce an AI product, which is the only interesting context they provided in this article.
Of course it's not literally a press release. But it's not much else, either. I guess that's what passes for business news.
The best argument against calling this article a press release is that it misses the key message of the actual PR, which is that Q is supposed to help people use all the complicated AWS features.
[1] https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-announces-amazon-q...
[2] https://press.aboutamazon.com/2023/11/aws-and-nvidia-announc...
I still don't understand what you want. You think the NYT just shouldn't report the announcement and its context in a timely manner at all? Or you expect it to achieve this impossible task of a bunch of substantive analysis from third parties when nobody's gotten a chance to use it yet?
The way the news works is, important breaking news gets announced quickly with basic context -- exactly the way this story is. Then, after people try something out and there are actually reactions to report on, a deeper "analysis" story tends to come out.
But publishing breaking news isn't publishing a "press release". And it's disingenuous to conflate the two.
Do you really think the NYT shouldn't publish any news except for full analysis articles that take days to research and write?
If they report on it, it should be brief and include a link to the primary source. (Compare to this[1] article on an Israeli-Palestinian hostage exchange announcement, which is both shorter and higher-quality.) At most, this article should have been 3-4 paragraphs long, not 15.
I don't understand what you think the benefit is of a major newspaper being a breathless stenographer for corporate press releases. Who benefits from having a shoddy copy-and-paste article today instead of a much better article tomorrow? Why does unverified marketing copy from Amazon qualify as "important"? Why does "timely" have to mean "right now, before we even have a chance to read the announcement properly"? That's not news, it's entertainment. If you want your "news" to be entertainment, that's your choice, I guess.
I am reminded of Googling for information on monitors and finding "reviews" that just list the bullet points from the marketing pamphlets.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/28/world/middleeast/hamas-ho...
And no, this is an article for the general public, not people who follow Amazon closely. 15 paragraphs provides the context. I don't understand -- first you're complaining there isn't enough context, now you're complaining there's too much?
> Who benefits from having a shoddy copy-and-paste article today instead of a much better article tomorrow?
Literally everyone who checks the news every couple of hours for what's happening in the business world? The news cycle is every couple of hours now, like it or not. It's been that way for many years now. And there probably won't be a better article tomorrow anyways because it takes much longer than that to evaluate a brand-new produc that nobody has even used yet.
And it's still not "shoddy copy-and-paste". It is providing actual context and explanation. It was a perfectly fine, normal article.
Your criticism makes no sense. You want something shorter with less context or something longer with more analysis but not something in-between? Sometimes in-between is the right size for what's currently known about a story. And that's good, normal, everyday news reporting. (And nothing to do with "entertainment".)
Apologies, I don't seem to be able to get a direct link to the bit in question. It was five paragraphs long when I looked at it.
> The news cycle is every couple of hours now, like it or not.
I don't like it and I don't want it. I am free to criticize it, as you are free to capitulate to it.
> It's been that way for many years now.
I am old enough to remember the before-times. I think news was better then. I think the relentless drive to vomit out unverified, unanalyzed information does more harm to humanity than good. You are free to disagree with me on this.
> It is providing actual context and explanation.
I discuss this in my original response to you. The overwhelming majority of the information is a one-sided sales pitch from Amazon. The (minimal) context is framed as a lead-in to positive marketing statements about Amazon. That's what makes me call it (metaphorically) a "press release". It is framed in a way to make people excited about a product that the authors of the article have not seen and have no verified information about. They are doing Amazon's work for it. This article benefits Amazon much more than it benefits readers.
> You want something shorter with less context or something longer with more analysis but not something in-between?
Yes, pretty much. I think we have different opinions about the amount and quality of the "context" provided, much of which consists of other Amazon announcements, and all of which could be summed up in a few sentences.
> And that's good, normal, everyday news reporting. (And nothing to do with "entertainment".)
I agree that this is normal. I do not agree that it is good. And it's definitely entertainment, because people who "[check] the news every couple of hours for what's happening in the business world" are overwhelmingly not day traders or PR flacks who actually respond to everything right away. Few people who plug themselves into live news feeds react in any significant way at all in the short term. And that's definitely the case here, because this is a product announcement. If you email your Amazon sales rep about the preview they're not even going to get back to you until tomorrow at the earliest.
Just to be clear: Yes, I am saying that large numbers of people follow the news mainly as a form of entertainment, whether they think that's what they're doing or not.
You're free not to like the news. Go ahead and hate it.
But that doesn't make a perfectly normal, regular, informative article a "press release", or anything like it, much less "entertainment", no matter how much you seem to want to argue that. An informative news story about Amazon releasing a new product to corporations just does not fall under entertainment.
You're using words to mean their opposites. That's not how language works, and you're not going to have a productive conversation with anyone if you keep insisting that things are other things, when they're clearly not.