Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge
Amazon has been successfully feeding talking points, video footage, and other corporate messaging to local television news stations ahead of its annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday. The footage and script are designed to paint Amazon in a positive light as it faces a torrent of bad media coverage and criticism from activists and politicians over its handling of workplace safety issues during the coronavirus pandemic.
As Zach Rael, an anchor for ABC affiliate KOCO 5 News in Oklahoma City, pointed out on Twitter earlier this morning, Amazon’s public relations team has been emailing TV stations around the country with prepared scripts and b-roll packages that promote the company’s safety precautions and other measures to combat…