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Comment by colechristensen | Hacker News Reader

This is a press release which was likely delivered to wsj et al through a wire service they pay to deliver them piles and piles of press releases. Nobody quotes those as sources because nobody but news organizations that pay for them has access to them. A press release is also a rather bad primary source unlike, say, a research paper or a blog post.

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The text on the Tesla website mentions https://globenewswire.com/

Anyone can setup a real time account for free.

Also the WSJ article pretty clearly used the press release as a source, so mentioning that is a separate issue from whether it is a good or bad source.

(unless you think the WSJ called Tesla and verified specific facts like "4,820 Model S and X vehicles were in transit" vs "The company said 4,820 vehicles were in transit at the end of the quarter")

The newswire is the distributor of the press release. It is equivalent to Tesla emailing all major news outlets; just more convenient and reliable. In short, Tesla is the source.

Press releases are usually free. Companies use third party providers to ensure that every investor/subscriber receives information at exactly the same time. Paying for company publications is extremely uncommon. For a public company I'm not even sure if that wouldn't be illegal.

You can still pay for premium services (via Bloomberg, Thomson Reuters, etc) but subscribing to company news releases can be easily done by just visiting a company's investor relations website.

The press release was created to provide information to news organizations. It is extremely odd to say they are not good sources.

It's a first-person source, coming from the company itself. Thus it's inherently biased toward the company and not the best source. This is as opposed to when the news article itself is a primary source, which is achieved by a reporter actually reporting what is happening in-person at the source of the event.

Of course, in this case it's a bit hard, since the only insight into Tesla's production goals is what they report externally, barring leaks and whatnot. A press release from the company is pretty much the best we can get. But just because it's the best doesn't mean it's necessarily good.

Like your second paragraph expresses, a press release id from the company itself is the absolute best source on their production numbers.

And as the very last sentence of my second paragraph says, "just because it's the best doesn't mean it's necessarily good". Your original post says "it is extremely odd to say they are not good sources".

You do realize that Tesla is a publicly traded company, and what you are saying (that they would misrepresent production numbers) would be securities fraud. They publicly stated their goals: https://www.forbes.com/sites/alanohnsman/2017/08/02/tesla-st...)

They did not reach their goals. No need for paranoia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Securities_fraud

Where did I say that they misrepresented their production numbers, or committed securities fraud?

In any case it's not paranoia. No matter what the law is, a press release is a first-party source. It is inherently biased toward the company. By no means should it be compared to an independent source, such as a report from an auditor or independent regulators.

You said that the information regarding either production goals or production numbers from Tesla's website was "inherently biased toward the company and not the best source". Meaning the published reservations, projections or production numbers would have been misrepresented in some way to benefit the company.

If they did so, that would be securities fraud, by definition. What about their projections, which were publicly stated and published in the past, or their actual production, which was publicly stated in the article (both of which are subject to SEC regulation review and legal recourse) are inherently biased toward the company?

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