I think it's also worth repeating here part of what Clean Technica's Zachary Shanhan had to say in a recent, highly significant article very relevant to this subject:
First of all, let’s be clear — Tesla is such a popular company now that many people in the media have to cover it or feel inspired to cover it who know very little about the company, its products, its history, or
its finances. Some of those reporters and opinion writers may think they got up to speed quickly, got the story straight, and rightfully came in with boxing gloves on to bash the tech/car company. The problem is that those people often didn’t get the full story, may have consumed and digested absolutely incorrect information, and may be out of their depths in the general topics they’re briefly covering (manufacturing, finance, cars, technology, etc.). I would say that, by and large, these people aren’t evil — they’ve just been misled. However, the original sources driving the narrative do likely have ulterior motives, in my opinion.
Here at
CleanTechnica, we’ve tried to dig into the depths of Tesla’s products, financing, manufacturing, and consumer demand for nearly a decade. We
don’t have all the info we’d like, so I’m not claiming that we always get the story right, but we do routinely see that other media outlets are lacking a great deal of context and have false facts. Many of them have picked up a certain narrative that seems plausible for a while but then crumbles with more information. That doesn’t mean they’re evil or in conspiracy with Big Oil, but it is a problem for society and does reflect poorly on their media outlets and the media in general.
[...]
Just as Tesla is on the verge of quarterly profits that essentially shut down the shorts, however, there has been a blitz attack on the company and its image from multiple corners. A longtime auto journalist who wrote a positive review of the Tesla Model 3 for the
Wall Street Journal was reportedly harassed so much about that review that
he deleted his Twitter account. Why are there so many Tesla haters on Twitter? The company is building superb electric cars. Whose toes is the company stepping on?
Aside from attacks on positive Tesla stories like that, there have reportedly been cases of underhanded UAW campaigns against Tesla (printed to wide readership by
The Guardian, one of my favorite media outlets, and others), cases of insider sabotage at the factory and misleading leaks that led to negative media reports, and a great deal of spin about Tesla finances (which most reporters covering Tesla are not equipped to personally evaluate).
More members of the new-to-Tesla or loosely-following-Tesla media would do well to separate the misinformation from accurate information and not be misled on the context by people who have put millions or billions of dollars down betting against Tesla.
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