Can you name an example where this news organization (Center for Investigative Reporting) has lied? If not, the fact that it has won a number of widely recognized rewards and has received a MacArthur grant should give you confidence that the reporters have been careful in their investigation and reporting.
The very "news organization" that is reporting this story has a history of publishing lies about Tesla. Google "Tesla Yellow Tape" -- that scandal was originally reported by Reveal, disproven within minutes of its release, and still has not been retracted.
Whether or not they lied is in the end an implementation detail - a skilled amoral persuader doesn't need to lie to mislead. The toolbox for that includes being biased in what facts you mention, making "mistakes," and using your own words to connect the wrong dots (basically every way to introduce an error can be abused). Tesla claims that the reporters are focusing on a healthcare provider that they cut ties with while ignoring what they are actually doing at present - which is one example of what you could do to make your readers believe wrong things without lying.
All right then, can you name an example where this news organization (Center for Investigative Reporting) has misled readers to make them believe the wrong things?
Again, That Tesla under reported injuries, which a 4 month OSHA investigation proved wasn't true. Is that enough of a lie to mistrust Reveal? You must surely know this.
As mentioned in the Reveal article, OSHA also found four other instances of improperly reporting injuries but could not report it due to the statute of limitations.
There's no point in being a less sophisticated reader than you can be. You should never be ignorant about the techniques that dishonest writers can use to fool you, no matter what you are reading.
Justifying a presumptive skepticism of reporting on Tesla with such a nebulous pronouncement as "but reporters often lie ..." is pretty much the opposite of "sophisticated."
The OSHA investigation did no such thing, and in fact the article included a direct quote from OSHA: "A Cal/OSHA spokeswoman said the investigation found four other “injury recording violations that fell outside of the statute of limitations.”"
"Outside of the statute of limitations" is very different than "proved wasn't true."
Gaining true knowledge about a situation is not possible without establishing a chain of trust. Whose reporting do you trust ? Each person in the chain needs to be evaluated individually and re-evaluated when new information comes to light.
Right now I rather trust what Tesla says when I hear horrendous claims like until proven otherwise. Especially since news media are not independent.
They rely almost entirely on advertisement which is a direct relation to "most eyeballs moved away from other 'free' options", which is directly related to the impact of the headline.
On the one side, you have a prizewinning independent nonprofit news organisation.
And on the other side you have a guy who is stepping down as Tesla CEO after fraud charges, and who's being sued for losing his temper and calling some random cave-diver a paedophile, twice.
Trust the sources and the quotes - while it is possible (though unethical) to mislead with quotes or data, “There was a strong push not to send anybody in an ambulance" is rather context-independent.
And generally speaking, if it's to the point of multiple articles written on a subject, there's almost certainly a fair amount of truth there.
Now, Tesla is dealing with the Streisand effect. I can see ramping electric car production to levels comparable to conventional car production to definitely be challenging, but what part of Tesla’s manufacturing process is necessarily more unsafe compared to conventional car manufacturing?
After reading this article, I’m of the opinion that Tesla is intentionally trying lowball their workplace injury numbers. The article mentions 48 were reported, but the fired medical professional says the actual number was probably twice as much. Let’s say that this estimated actual number is indeed true and there were 96 actual injuries. How many factory employees does Tesla have compared to and conventional car factory and what are injury rates there (pick something in the same state to keep workplace injury laws the same). It makes no sense to me to underreport this number and risk serious repercussions as opposed to report accurately, give injures employees sufficient medical care and support, and improve the manufacturing process thereby reducing the rate of injuries. Yes, Tesla is burning a lot of money, and doing the right thing would cost them more. The question is how much more compared to the risk of getting caught underreporting.
This entire situation reeks of “Move fast and break things” applied ad nauseum to where Tesla is becoming its own worst enemy as opposed to its short sellers.
Just like any other professional, a reporter may want to do a good job (because of dedication to their work, desire for fame, career ambitions, etc). And that means publishing an important story. That desire may push them to look for evidence where there's none, and humans are good at making themselves and others come to the wrong conclusions in such situations.
By the way, this also explains why prosecutors sometimes lie or exaggerate.
Furthermore, some reporters want to influence public opinion in a certain way because of their personal beliefs or peer pressure.
I do not claim any of this applies to Reveal. I just want to point out why money from views isn't the only mechanism for misleading reporting.
A really good news organization may create pressure against reporters overstepping the bounds in pursuit of a story. But IMO it takes an incredible effort to counteract the human tendency to bend the facts to help make a point.
Of course, CEOs have even more obvious reasons to mislead people: maintainging good corporate and personal image. This is compounded by the fear subordinates have in telling the CEO that they are wrong. Also, the more successful the person, the more likely they are to be a bit delusional by believing everything they do is right, and ignoring any criticism.
Views. That's primary reason reporters exaggerate news, controversy has a monetary benefit.
(This doesn't necessarily mean that the reporter in question here is exaggerating, however)
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but Reveal is an independent nonprofit organization. The idea that you would prescribe to "clicks" as a justification for not trusting their reporting is a very damning thing to me.
For a site that prides itself on it's intellect and knowledge, it's unsettling how often I'm seeing people jump to "fake news" type of commenting.
As someone working in the media business. Please could you at least google the outlet you‘re talking about? You‘re embarrassing yourself with your own ignorance. Reveal is a non-profit. They don‘t care about page views, because they don‘t need advertising to finance themselves. There‘s only one thing an investigative journalism team cares about and that‘s reputation. They are deeply incentivized against publishing half-assed work or missinformation. Please just stop repeating this meme over and over that journalists only care about page views.
Trust the regulators. They have less of a stake in this than the CEO (who purportedly hates yellow) or the writer (the company that purports the CEO hates yellow).
The regulators will insure that corrections take place if the company is really misidentifying, mistreating, and underreporting injuries.
I diagram the points and counterpoints in a Hacker News thread like this one and determine which seem sufficiently documented and which need additional research. Very important to not put too much weight on points for which there are no counterpoints or significant supporting research regardless of initial "plausibility"
There were two Twitter threads by high-level people at Reveal, defending their Tesla articles. I found them convincing, I have no doubt that Reveal is honest. On the other hand, Elon is notorious to lie and mislead.
You don't, really; there's so many major stakeholders that have an interest in raising or lowering Tesla's stocks, both of which will spend millions to get articles like these published - and shills / trolls to bombard the HN comments with remarks supporting or going against the article and subject.
Reporters say Tesla is shitty. But reporters often lie and even more often exaggerate.
Musk says he cares about safety and all accusations are wrong. But CEOs often lie and even more often are uninformed or delusional.
If anyone has advice about how I can develop some trust in one side or the other, please let me know.