| Hi all, it's Matt Day. As an Amazon.com Inc. beat reporter, I've had plenty of company lately. Over the last few months, must-read investigations into the company seemed to land every few days. And the barrage isn't over: Tuesday is the premier of "Amazon Empire" from PBS Frontline. I got an early look at the documentary, which is based on interviews with dozens of people inside and outside the company, including Bloomberg's own Brad Stone and Spencer Soper. The show is a sweeping history of Amazon's 25 years, as well as a full airing of the company's scandals—which, remarkably, sustain two hours of television handily. The primetime recap of bad press comes at an inconvenient time for the $1.06 trillion market cap company. Amazon is currently facing down antitrust pressure, grappling with the potential for tightened regulation and defending against the ever-present possibility of becoming so villainized that customers start thinking twice before hitting "Buy Now." In the documentary, producers James Jacoby, Anya Bourg and Megan Robertson—the same team behind the popular Facebook Inc. documentary from Frontline—focus on the consequences of the company's thirst for growth. The stories include reports of the working conditions at Amazon's warehouses, an issue for the company for almost a decade (since Soper first highlighted worker safety complaints in Pennsylvania); the deadly fallout from the company's efforts to stitch together a delivery network of independent contractors; tensions with independent sellers on Amazon's marketplace; and eavesdropping on Amazon Echo users. Still, the documentary is far from a hit job. Amazon put six executives on camera, and the producers sought out other sources to help articulate the company's thinking. In one exchange, Randy Miller, a former Amazon manager, takes aim at the notion that the company's tough negotiating tactics should even be newsworthy: "A retailer and a supplier having a disagreement? Stop the presses!" For those of us who live and breathe Amazon, the film doesn't break a ton of new ground. But the interviews are compelling. Perhaps most newsworthy: Shel Kaphan, Amazon employee No. 1, says it might make sense to break up the company he helped start. "On the one hand, I'm proud of what it became," he said. "But it also scares me." Kaphan said Amazon is an exemplar of well-executed, business school capitalism. "They're doing it aggressively and skillfully and with great intelligence," he said. "And they will continue to do that unless they're constrained by other forces in society." In a recent column in the New York Times touting Amazon's $15-an-hour starting wage, its public relations chief Jay Carney repeated a refrain executives deploy in response to critiques: Big entities like Amazon deserve scrutiny. "At Amazon, we welcome it—from lawmakers, regulators and customers," Carney wrote. Notably absent from Carney's list? The media. Bezos's lieutenants and Carney's PR team might feel like they've spent more than their share of time in the spotlight. But as evidenced by Tuesday's documentary, Amazon's march toward retail domination will continue to garner attention from the fourth estate, and there's always more to learn about the Everything Store. —Matt Day | 
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