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Tesla, TSLA & the Investment World: the Perpetual Investors' Roundtable
- Thread starter AudubonB
- Start date
Tinm - I am sorry, i am disappointed that the Tesla community lost a good opportunity to probe and understand the mind set of the media actors - reporters, editors, publishers, advt clients - but instead we got this.
So what? It doesn't matter who is playing the dirty game. The damage is the same.
In some instances it is the editors behind the scenes, rail roading on a hard working unbiased innocent reporter - as clearly in this case. But in many instances it is the scumbag reporter who is hell bent on blowing up every little thing into huge negative story, and the editors lap it up. Like in Russ Mitchell, Linette Lopez, Laura Kolodny, Charlie Grant and NYT's very own Neil Boudette. Do you even know what kind of a**holes they are? have you seen their twitter feeds? Go look at Grant's or Lopez's pinned tweet. Russ is having an orgy fest with Tesla shorts like Mark BS.
To me they do far more damage to our society and future than drug pushers selling cocaine to kids. They have a big mega phone and they are spreading rumors.
'utlimately figuring out' ? Are you that naive? For some it is just plain ignorance. For others they personally hate Musk. For most, it is the bottom line. Where they get their big advert dollars from !
The days of trying to educate NYT, LAT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Business Insider are over. What you are recommending is equivalent to 'politely educating' drug pushers on the negative effects of drugs on kids and gently change their minds, without antagonizing them.
I don't care if the reporter is innocent and unbiased and wrote a great report that got mangled by a biased editor. It is not anyone's job here to find out who is responsible for a hit piece.
So what? It doesn't matter who is playing the dirty game. The damage is the same.
In some instances it is the editors behind the scenes, rail roading on a hard working unbiased innocent reporter - as clearly in this case. But in many instances it is the scumbag reporter who is hell bent on blowing up every little thing into huge negative story, and the editors lap it up. Like in Russ Mitchell, Linette Lopez, Laura Kolodny, Charlie Grant and NYT's very own Neil Boudette. Do you even know what kind of a**holes they are? have you seen their twitter feeds? Go look at Grant's or Lopez's pinned tweet. Russ is having an orgy fest with Tesla shorts like Mark BS.
To me they do far more damage to our society and future than drug pushers selling cocaine to kids. They have a big mega phone and they are spreading rumors.
'utlimately figuring out' ? Are you that naive? For some it is just plain ignorance. For others they personally hate Musk. For most, it is the bottom line. Where they get their big advert dollars from !
The days of trying to educate NYT, LAT, WSJ, Bloomberg, Business Insider are over. What you are recommending is equivalent to 'politely educating' drug pushers on the negative effects of drugs on kids and gently change their minds, without antagonizing them.
I don't care if the reporter is innocent and unbiased and wrote a great report that got mangled by a biased editor. It is not anyone's job here to find out who is responsible for a hit piece.
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I see your point...however the point I was/am trying to make is the reach of the old school print media (and their online presence) is small and and becoming more and more insignificant. The number of new Tesla owners is growing each day while the number of people old school media reaches shrink.
Yes if we lived in a perfect world the change we need would be faster....but sadly we don't.
StealthP3D
Well-Known Member
No doubt, manipulations happen. All the time. But here's the thing. It's tricky business. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Well, it's not exact, that's why the manipulators continue to manipulate. With enough money to throw around, and a bit of deception and skill, they can cap the exuberance. But it doesn't change the value of the underlying business. At least not substantially. The can dissuade a few sales of cars, they can perhaps reduce the market value of the cars, but they can't actually make the business fail unless it's already teetering on the edge. And Tesla is not.
It looks to me like Musk has finally resigned himself to not having a lot of power over these cretins except to the extent that he is able to succeed. And it looks like that is where he has focussed his exceptional energies. Into beating them the old fashioned way. This came about sometime after the SEC settlement. He's put his nose to the grindstone, cut expenses and fine-tuned production efficiencies (all the while making even grander plans for the near future). This is a big job but if anyone is up to the task it's Elon Musk. What Elon Musk wants badly enough, he gets. Because he makes it happen. Not because someone gives it to him. He figures out how to best make it happen.
This is not an easy job but I think we are in for a happy surprise. It might not surprise the biggest bulls amongst us, but it will surprise the popular narrative so far to the upside it's not even funny. There is no demand problem because the products are truly iconic and superior. And production and expenses have been tuned as much humanly possible ( in the current timeframe). Because that's what desire, talent and hard work make happen.
Tesla is not "out of the woods" yet but they are one step closer to proving the naysayers wrong once and for all. This is a long, hard-fought battle and even given the challenges that lay ahead, I think Musk and team will succeed in spectacular fashion but it won't be quick and easy. I do think it's all but inevitable and this becomes more and more apparent when we look closely at the supposed competition. Which is barely any competition at all. Make no mistake, the real competition is not EV's but rather fossil cars/trucks and I think most of us already know which is easier to live with.
I worry more about "the big one" (earthquake) taking out Freemont production than I do about talent or execution. Because talent and ability to execute has already been proven beyond my satisfaction and earthquakes are not predictable or frequent. Time will tell but I don't think it's unrealistic to expect more of the same (which is a very good thing). Those who claim execution so far has been sub-par have little understanding of how the world actually works. To date, execution has been beyond excellent. I'm not ignoring the warts, I'm saying the warts are not critical. The job is big and execution has focussed on the proper areas for success. It's brilliance in action. Anyone who doubts this simply needs to list a similar accomplishment in any parallel industry/business/etc.
I try not to focus on the negative, corrupt media, but it is difficult. You sum it up well. The more Tesla owners there are, the more people will see that the stories are lies or irrelevant. We have to win. There is no maybe or potential failure allowed.
Artful Dodger
"Neko no me"
It's gonna be beginning of July. End of the quarter, everyone is trying to help delivery again I suppose.
Sorry I disagree.
The New York times is still very popular among many well educated and we'll meaning people on the moderate left and it's dispicable actions are definitely doing harm to Tesla's business and slowing down its mission.
We as Tesla supporters are very fortunate that the team has what it takes to overcome these obstacles.
But at the same time we should do what we can to help them. This means when we tell our friends about our amazing cars, we should also point out the lies NYT told over the years, and the fact they refuse to apologise, and continue telling lies trying to slow down the transition to sustainable energy.
We should do our best to expose NYT for what it is.
Our company used to advertise in print and it's easy to believe the reporter didn't have any bias. The bias is likely to come from how the system works.
Typically, editors publish calendars of upcoming stories so advertisers can decide which issues are most relevant to their ad campaigns.
PR firms also book appointments between client-supplied "experts", who are usually advertisers. They obtain editorial calendars to ensure their clients give their point of view in scheduled stories, and contribute to breaking ones.
Most reporters are not subject matter experts. They need to write a lot of stories, so they rely on analysts and experts for information and to suggest articles. Over time the reporters establish a rapport with the experts and come to rely on them.
Given this process, it's easy for advertisers to influence the news even if a reporter has no agenda. The solution is to do exactly what was done, which is to talk to the reporter to introduce them to credible experts with alternate points of view for their next story. This works best if the expert is also a source of breaking news, can credibly be quoted and build a rapport.
This is time consuming because there are many reporters and publications, but not a problem for companies with marketing budgets and PR firms whose sole job is to track reporters and upcoming stories.
Btw, anyone can request an editorial calendar btw, and if they're a credible source, can establish a relationship as well.
maybe order some mars-restored coffee cups while u wait. great gifts, i told myself.
Elon Musk on Twitter
That tweet made them millions
Update:
What follows is my personal opinion only.
So I had a great call with the NYT reporter. We spoke on the phone for nearly two hours (really). Covered a lot of ground, got a lot of context, learned a lot -- I suspect both of us; l know I learned a lot. Ivan is a good guy, he's not a bad guy. Suffice to say, he's heard a ton from Tesla owners since the article came out.
No time to write up a longer summary now -- it's midafternoon, I'm starving, and haven't had lunch yet -- but suffice to say there is no great NYT conspiracy to screw Tesla. I just don't see it. There is no Broder, the secret puppeteer, controlling everything from behind the curtain. Hell, these reporters don't even know nor have ever communicated with Broder. Forget Broder. We really as a community have to put that theory to rest for good. Broder has become to Tesla what Soros is for the GOP: the bogeyman. Same goes for Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of LA Times: he is not dictating what Russ Mitchell or other LA Times reporters should write. These theories are not going to move things forward constructively. Time to retire them.
A lot gets cut from news stories and a lot got cut from this one. He did the EVgo/Chevy Bolt drive from LA->Vegas sometime in April, two months ago. He did not pick EVGo, they reached out to him. They offered the car; he did not pick the car. He rode with EVGo reps in the car, I suppose he thought it was worth a try, he might learn something about the charging infrastructure available to the public. There is so much context that gets lost by what winds up in the few words that survive to print. He did all sorts of research for this story which was ostensibly about charging and charging networks--not about the cars. He covers alternative energy and has an interest in EV charging networks and in battery storage. There was a ton more about Tesla in the article originally that didn't make it into the final piece (Tesla gave him a Model 3 to drive for a weekend--he thought it was a great car, no complaints, though he did have some interesting charging experiences, which is the thing he was mainly interested in). But still, I learned that apparently Tesla's PR team is generally happy with the resulting story, and is not bent out of shape the way many in the Tesla community have been since this story came out. Something to think about.
There is a difference between the individual journalist and the publication or media outlet that puts out the story. We too often forget that. There are also editors, copy editors, headline editors, web producers, and all sorts of other team members who are editing, guiding, cutting, pasting, rearranging, A/B testing of headlines (once again, I learned that the reporter had no say or input or anything as to what the headline of the story was: that's done in NYC, and this reporter is LA based), and packaging the final product that readers see in print or online.
For now I'll just say that I suspect a lot of the dissatisfaction many of us feel in terms of how the EV phenomenon is being depicted and covered in major media actually stems from how the stories are packaged by the publication, not from the reporters themselves. But we tend to direct our unhappiness solely onto the name of the reporter attached to the article. On social media, the reporter gets the brunt of the grief, the attacks, the ad-hominems. If we want to move media coverage of EVs forward we have to figure out a way to constructively engage at the editorial level; reporters in general are not the enemy. (Yes, yes, there are writers out there who genuinely don't like Tesla, and have a bias, I will stipulate. Ivan isn't one of 'em.) Tweeting flames to NYT editors isn't the answer, unfortunately; I suspect they a) just tune that stuff out and b), worse, it all just fuels a view--deserved or undeserved--that Tesla owners are elitist and reactionary. (Perhaps a bunch of brief, respectful, thoughtful letters to the editor would be a better approach at engaging with higher-ups in the press. If only the New York Times still had an ombudsman/public editor.)
I think the EV crowd sometimes views news articles like this latest NYT piece as massive tsunami waves, wreaking destruction on the public's understanding of EVs. The more I discuss the articles with journalists at these media outlets, the more I start realizing that each article is indeed a wave, but just one ordinary wave, and it is the lapping of many waves over years that will ultimately cause the shape of a continent to change.
One thing that would really help is for the people in the press to begin owning EVs, so they have personal hands-on day-in/day-out experience with them. But realistically the industry isn't quite there yet. Early adopter Tesla owners, of which I am one, often easily forget that. Teslas are still pretty exotic/expensive vehicles, and EVs, be they Tesla or made elsewhere, are still out of reach economically and practically by many people for all sorts of reasons we often don't think about. So sure, there are Tesla superchargers all over, but to the ordinary public who doesn't own a Tesla, they mean nothing. I suspect this reporter was more interested in the state of charging for everything non-Tesla. Furthermore, I suspect EVs in general, and definitely Teslas, are still not even on the purchase horizon of most people who work at news-gathering organizations. As a consequence I suspect editors are cutting stuff from stories that might have helped the overall context, stuff existing Tesla owners would have seen as no-brainers and crucial for increasing the public's understanding. I really think this is where the disconnect is. Sadly it's not going to get fixed overnight, or even in a year. But I am hopeful it is going to get better over time as EVs become more mainstream.
So, I suggest we all take a deep breath and work to find constructive ways outside of swift social media reactions to get better media coverage of the EV revolution. Ideally everyone ought to pitch in: owners, EV-makers, editors, and reporters. I suggested to this reporter that we ought to have a conference and hash these issues out constructively. Maybe that would move the needle forward a little bit. It's a dream, anyway.
Thank you for the effort and spending time with the reporter, but I don't buy that line of excuse.
In this day and age of online media, why does anything need to be cut/edited? Wouldn't the cutting/editing change the reporter's intent and tone? As someone whose name shows up on the byline, shouldn't they too get upset when the public misunderstands their piece?
Carl Raymond
Active Member
Well if all who liked the tweet ordered the cup and each cup makes 10 bucks, that’s about 50 grand. Pocket money for Spacex.
It’s the promotion that gets Musk excited. He wants people thinking about terraforming Mars, which the mug will do every coffee break. He’s selling imagination.
sundaymorning
Active Member
Troy’s new update for Q2: 89,619
Yeah they all ordered one all right. It's out of stock already. Elon should just sell *sugar* on twitter and be gaap+ all day everyday.
First of all, it's unacceptable.
Second, they're not answering their email either.
If there were one consistent reliable method of communication which worked every time and could be used by anyone, including someone not yet "in their database", I wouldn't complain -- but there isn't.
I will say that *when I actually reach the right person who can help* with whatever my problem is, they're always great. It's the internal organization, the communications, which has been failing.
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Fair enough. I agree. But the reasons why the publisher is leaning on the editors to publish dishonest hit pieces when they could easily write accurate pieces... I mean, those reasons can only be malicious. The only way to "help them make better decisions" is to expose what's going on -- find the source of the pressure, the money, whatever it is.
I like to assume incompetence rather than malice, but come on, incompetence *simply does not look like this*. (I've seen enough honest incompetent articles about EVs over the years. They look very different.) Somewhere at the NYT, there is malice afoot.
Maybe it's as simple as "dishonest smears sell, honesty gets fewer clicks", but that's still malice.
Pfft; mugs. It's after midnight mountain time, after 2 am Eastern. 50,000 people are watching SpaceX's live stream, that number is rising rapidly as T-0 approaches, not to mention other streams.
The halo is real.
Well, I know a little something about how reporting is supposed to work. If you're reporting on electric cars, talking to some people who drive electric cars regularly, to get "background", would be how you would start.
I've given interviews to local reporters on the topic a few times (usually at Drive Electric Week). They have produced perfectly good articles of the sort you would expect from ignorant people who are new to the topic. Honest pieces, didn't focus where I would have liked, often making a few mistakes (confusing kw with kwh, you know), but *representing* the typical EV driver experience.
This NYT article as published was nothing like that.
He really did do a great job. Better than I could have.
All I can suggest is highlighting Kathy Christianson's comment, since she apparently does LA-Las Vegas trips in a Bolt regularly, and was compelled to create an account and comment just because she wanted to respond. (I know you sometimes pull out "best comments" on articles to highlight them.)
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