Times coverage of the Whole Foods "price cuts" associated with Amazon's purchase of the grocer has been astonishingly gullible and lame.
A page one news article by Nick Wingfield and David Gelles appeared under the print headline "Amazon's First Act at Whole Foods: Slash Prices." That article included not a single actual price. I mean, there were references to company stock prices in the article, but the only reference to food prices that included actual numbers was a quote from "Brittain Ladd, a strategy consultant who previously worked for Amazon on its grocery business." The Times quoted Ladd as saying, "I won't be surprised if some prices are lowered 15 percent to as high as 25 percent in some categories."
How many other businesses can get a front-page, totally unskeptical, New York Times article out of a vague promise to cut prices, without any specific details about how much prices will be cut?
I'm not sure why — maybe it's respect for Amazon owner Jeff Bezos's ownership of the Washington Post, or maybe it's just a lack of skeptical editing. Maybe the skeptical editors took the buyout the Times recently offered experienced employees, or maybe they are off on summer vacation.
Equally lame is what passes for a Times effort at a follow-up, which appears in today's business section under the byline of Kevin Granville and the headline, "The Amazon Effect: How Prices Dropped at Whole Foods."
The Times went shopping and "bought products that Amazon had indicated would get a lower price." One wonders why the Times bought only those products, rather than a representative basket of groceries, which might more accurately reflect the impact of the price cuts on an ordinary shopper.
Another big flaw in the Times approach is the comparison: "a basket of goods purchased at Whole Foods at Columbus Circle in Midtown Manhattan last Thursday with the same items purchased at the same store on Monday." That's a fine comparison, but missing is a comparison of the prices at Whole Foods — either pre- or post-Amazon price cuts — against prices at other, competing grocery stores, such as Trader Joe's or Fairway. Would the Times write about a price cut on Fidelity index funds without also checking the prices at Vanguard or Charles Schwab? If it did, readers would have a legitimate gripe, as they sure do with this coverage, which has basically been free advertising for Amazon-Whole Foods masquerading as news coverage.