This morning, when the dust had settled on the vote tally from the election on whether to unionize Amazon’s BHM1 warehouse in Alabama, the New York Times published a story with the headline, “Amazon Appears to Defeat Union Drive at Alabama Warehouse.”

From the outside we can only guess at the kinds of conversations that transpired, but whatever their content, the headline was edited to read, “Amazon Workers Appear to Defeat Union Drive at Alabama Warehouse.” Then it was changed to, “Amazon Workers Defeat Union Drive at Alabama Warehouse.” Now it reads, “Amazon Workers Vote Down Union Drive at Alabama Warehouse.”

Did the New York Times come under pressure to change the wording, or did the editors make these decisions entirely on their own, to reflect their view of the situation? Whatever the case may be, the result is that over the course of these changes the first narrative — in which the corporation Amazon crushed a union drive — was replaced by a new one in which the impetus for the outcome came from Amazon workers themselves. Of course the second story makes Amazon look a lot better than the first one does.