A Times article on Yahoo's decision to require employees to work from the office rather than telecommuting from home includes the sentence, "On Monday, another ailing company, Best Buy, announced that it, too, would no longer permit employees to work remotely, reversing one of the most permissive flexible workplace policies in the business world."
Is it accurate to describe Best Buy as "ailing" or fair to do so without including (or, apparently, even seeking) comment from Best Buy responding to that characterization?
I own some Best Buy stock. It closed yesterday at $18.40 a share. Including dividends, it's up 55% from where it closed on December 31, 2012, far outpacing the stock market overall. (Update: It was up another 4% this morning, so I sold my shares, figuring I'd take the money and reallocate the investment into some other "ailing" company on its way to recovery.) According to Yahoo! Finance, Best Buy had $49.62 billion in revenue over the past year, and $2.36 billion in EBITDA. Granted, it's not growing at the pace it used to be growing, and it hasn't been profitable. But if it's fair or accurate for the Times business page to describe a company whose stock is up 55% year to date as "ailing," either the word "ailing" is meaningless, or the Times' standards of accuracy are.