PBS' Frontline documentary about Amazon is "frightening"

Salon.com

The two-hour documentary "Amazon Empire: The Rise and Reign of Jeff Bezos" that premiered Tuesday is from James Jacoby, who tackled "The Facebook Dilemma" for Frontline in 2018. "Jacoby's work on 'The Facebook Dilemma,' which examined  that company's failure to swiftly move to counteract the platform being manipulated into a disinformation machine, proved to be Peabody-worthy," says Melanie McFarland. "But with 'Amazon Empire' he has a steeper and more difficult incline to contend with, because questions concerning obtaining and using user data are only one part of a much larger puzzle. In taking a hard look at the company, and seeking to understand how Bezos' mind works without actually sitting down with the man, 'Amazon Empire' touches upon the multiple factors about the company that lead people to praise it as an innovative, inspiring entity that also has an outsize influence on politics, the economy, the environment, and even the value of their human workers. And Jacoby looks at those issues fairly while leaving little question as to the worrisome nature of the company's domination-focused ethos." Meanwhile, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post says "Amazon Empire" "finds a lot that should worry us." The Post's TV critic Hank Stuever adds: "It’s not chock full of new information, but it smartly and effectively builds toward a disturbing conclusion — that Amazon is in sore need of some corrective regulation from a government that seems, at best, indifferent to intervening and, at worst, submissively technocratic."