Wall Street Journal Continues its Crusade against Tesla

[Olle]

Holman Jenkins again, this time worse than ever:

Consumer Reports Spends Its Juice, Badly - WSJ

Using words like prostitution, Jenkins is trying to imply between the lines that CR has been bribed by Tesla to give the perfect score and that Consumer reports is spending tax money.

There seems to be little to no substance in his accusations, and it is full of irrelevant facts like the "Merc C class and BMW 5 sells more than Tesla" So what? they are smaller cars for a different market.
Complaining about subsidies for Tesla (what subsidies?) and forgot to mention that big oil gets big subsidies…

Now I'm really considering canceling my superscription for WSJ

 

[jerry33]

These days the media does three things:

1. Makes headlines so that you will click on the story.

2. Writes articles that will please their advertisers.

3. Values entertainment over factual reporting.

 

[Olle]

These days the media does three things:

1. Makes headlines so that you will click on the story.

2. Writes articles that will please their advertisers.

3. Values entertainment over factual reporting.

You would hope that WSJ:s standards were a little higher than the tabloids.

 

[Panoz]

WSJ *should* be better than a tabloid, but when have they ever criticized CR for a review? I think I agree with Jerry33...

 

[imherkimer]

You would hope that WSJ:s standards were a little higher than the tabloids.

Since WSJ was acquired by the King of Tabloids, Rupert Murdoch, it's standards have reflected his agenda.
So all 3 of Jerry33's media standards are now common to both the NY Post (and comparable Murdoch publications) and the WSJ.

 

[lucy]

Haters gonna hate.

 

[MikeL]

The day wsj became newscorp, it became purely agenda driven. Their relationship with any facts or realities that contradicted the agenda became untenable, and had to be abandoned. You should cancel your subscription, everyone should. The kicker is THEY should be championing a hot, new, American company that makes the best ever product in its field, right? I know, all been said before. Sickening, stupid - uucgk

Anyway, similar to what Jerry said: News media has always been three things
1. Advertising
2. Entertainment
3. Information

In THAT order of priority

 

[bonnie]

The day wsj became newscorp, it became purely agenda driven. Their relationship with any facts or realities that contradicted the agenda became untenable, and had to be abandoned. You should cancel your subscription, everyone should. The kicker is THEY should be championing a hot, new, American company that makes the best ever product in its field, right? I know, all been said before. Sickening, stupid - uucgk

Anyway, similar to what Jerry said: News media has always been three things
1. Advertising
2. Entertainment
3. Information

In THAT order of priority

I cancelled my subscription about a month after ownership changed - there was a noticeable change to the tenor of stories.

- - - Updated - - -

Non-paywall link to article: Consumer Reports Spends Its Juice, Badly - WSJ

 

[dgpcolorado]

I cancelled my subscription about a month after ownership changed - there was a noticeable change to the tenor of stories...

Much the same for me: I cancelled my longstanding WSJ subscription when the Murdoch purchase went through. I knew what was about to happen and didn't care to support it with my dollars.

 

[gg_got_a_tesla]

The tax subsidies they complain about are the federal tax credit on each car primarily, I guess. It's a loaded topic in itself. Maybe, it's best when Tesla finishes selling 200k+ cars in the U.S. and the credit tails off.

Can't wait for 2018 when Tesla starts selling a more affordable car in the 3. Well, these folks might find something else to diss Tesla with.

 

[walla2]

The writer brings up the fairly vulgar word "prostitution" to discuss what CR did in writing about the p85d. It then reads "CR does not give it's content away for free." The irony is that the WSJ is a subscription based service and prostitutes itself on a daily basis, and the WSJ writer apparently can't see that problem at his own paper.

 

[Tinky]

I love my Tesla, but would like to see Solar, Windmills, and electric vehicles stand on their own.
Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies
http://lat.ms/1BwC8o9

The above is a article in the LA TIMES, not exactly a conservative rag.

 

[dauger]

I started an earlier TMC News thread about WSJ's Jenkins "compliance company" piece. I see a pattern of Jenkins spinning every attribute of his target negative. E.g., he emphasizes 5 hour charge times while putting Superchargers' 30-minute charge in parenthetical to paint "truthiness". Except for a handful of reasonable commenters like Anna Kaikou and Richard Davidson, I begin to wonder if the hating commenters are paid; their sentence structure and positions seem too similar.

Is accusing CR of "prostitution" libel? I think CR has a legitimate case to name both WSJ and Jenkins as Defendants.

 

[S'toon]

I love my Tesla, but would like to see Solar, Windmills, and electric vehicles stand on their own.
Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies
http://lat.ms/1BwC8o9

The above is a article in the LA TIMES, not exactly a conservative rag.

General Motors $3,494,237,703
Ford $2,522,304,454
Automakers are also a big source of corporate subsidies, with Ford (NYSE: F ) , General Motors (NYSE: GM ) , Fiat, and Nissan among the top nine. Expanding the list a bit further, and you'll find Toyota at No. 16, Volkswagen at No. 22, Hyundai at No. 24, and Daimler at No. 32.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2014/03/01/10-companies-receiving-the-biggest-handouts-from-t.aspx

 

[alin3]

WSJ hard news is still excellent.

Where it is totally off the rails is the opinion sections...like the editorial page which is SMH everyday I read it.

 

[ZachShahan]

As someone who has worked in the media for 6 years, I can pretty confidently say the WSJ is now one of the most ridiculously bad mainstream media outlets.

I love my Tesla, but would like to see Solar, Windmills, and electric vehicles stand on their own.
Elon Musk's growing empire is fueled by $4.9 billion in government subsidies
http://lat.ms/1BwC8o9

The above is a article in the LA TIMES, not exactly a conservative rag.

The LA Times may be decent on the whole, but I've seen it publish some of the most slanted, incorrect, stupid pieces on cleantech. This one is quite horrible. The nice thing is that they actually ran pieces focused on Elon's responses:

Elon Musk defends $4.9 billion in government money for his companies - LA Times

Elon Musk: 'If I cared about subsidies, I would have entered the oil and gas industry' - LA Times

 

[MikeC]

I started an earlier TMC News thread about WSJ's Jenkins "compliance company" piece. I see a pattern of Jenkins spinning every attribute of his target negative. E.g., he emphasizes 5 hour charge times while putting Superchargers' 30-minute charge in parenthetical to paint "truthiness". Except for a handful of reasonable commenters like Anna Kaikou and Richard Davidson, I begin to wonder if the hating commenters are paid; their sentence structure and positions seem too similar.

Is accusing CR of "prostitution" libel? I think CR has a legitimate case to name both WSJ and Jenkins as Defendants.

Of course he gets paid. The rate is $0.01/click, like all the other SeekingAlpha authors. This was published on SeekingAlpha, right...?

 

[dhrivnak]

You would hope that WSJ:s standards were a little higher than the tabloids.

That was before Rupert Murdock took over the paper.

 

[AlMc]

The positive that could come out of this is if CR does start to answer back the WSJ: Free publicity.........I believe more people respect CR than WSJ.

 

[wdolson]

The positive that could come out of this is if CR does start to answer back the WSJ: Free publicity.........I believe more people respect CR than WSJ.

My father has been a diehard subscriber to both for decades. He's always been more of a Eisenhower Republican than the modern version and has always disregarded Fox News as junk news. However, I heard him start to slide to the right after the WSJ was bought. In the last year he's gone completely silent whenever politics comes up, except he let slip he was completely disgusted with the entire field of people running for the presidential nomination. I think he's finally seeing the party he has supported the last 70+ years is not the same as it once was.

Though he has been critical of CR's coverage of large cars in the past. He's claimed for years that CR tended to review larger cars more negatively than smaller cars claiming they wanted everyone to drive more efficient vehicles. He might chalk their love of the Model S up to that eco-friendly slant he's accused them of. Though he's also always been a huge fan of car safety, his car buying decisions have always been driven by what safety features you can get on a car. He would love the Model S for it's safety.