Amazon's brand had already been damaged by its policy of forcing warehouse employees to work unpaid overtime.
When The New York Times published a blistering expose of Amazon's shark-eat-shark corporate culture, it made working at the company seem like a chapter out of 1984.
Ironically, the story would probably have been more balanced if Amazon's PR group had cooperated with the reporters instead of giving them the stiff-arm.
Lesson learned: If you don't work with the media, the media will work against you.