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It's at least supported by my own personal experience, which inclines me to believe the narrative. My wife & I were considering installing solar on our residence. The payoff was marginal, but it was there. We were going to save for a year, and begin after prices had fallen a little further.

Then, the tariff came up, and the cost/reward equation went up in smoke.

Anecdata of course, but part of why I'm inclined to believe. Solar appears to be right at a tipping point where it makes solid financial sense even if you don't care about saving the environment- but it's marginal, enough that a tariff could easily wipe out the benefit. (Which, the cynical side of me says, is exactly what the administration was aiming for)

Which is why I said confirmation bias.

Sometimes your confirmation bias is correct; sometimes it isn't.

I'm unsure what reading between the lines does here. Does the revelation that only some of cancelations is due to tariffs change the story beyond shifting a number from X to Y?

Yes, of course.

If it turns out that the number of contracts canceled is much less, then it changes the calculations completely.

If it turns out that this story is completely bogus and the "cancelled" contracts were already going to be canceled before the tariffs and the delayed contracts end up going through, then that means there was actually no effect.

Using anecdotes to speculate on the validity of any given work of journalism is just substituting media bias for personal bias.

I don't know how many contracts were cancelled, so I would have to consider the range of values between "the story is sensationalism" to "the story is accurate in its essence", and at this point I'm no better off than when I started.

Well, that's my point.

Please offer some facts or evidence to clarify it then? All you are offering is an opinion.

An opinion is "a view or judgement about something not necessarily based on facts or knowledge". What he offered is mostly not an opinion in that it's mostly him relating his personal experiences on this topic; which probably, if we are to give him the benefit the doubt, are factual events that actually happened.

I disagree. To me, it appears as mostly opinion with personal anecdotes presented as evidence.

The opinion esentially boils down to "Don't trust this story or the media in general, only credulous individuals would believe what this story is saying, if you read between the lines you will come to the same conclusion that I did, after all, my personal experiences back up my opinion that this story is bullshit"

I am willing to put my money where my mouth is and take a bet saying that in exactly one year, a significant number of these $2.5 billion of contracts will have miraculously found a way to happen.

I don't necessarily think you're wrong, I am more addressing your rhetoric that suggests your informed opinion invalidates the story, especially because the anecdotes you present are examples of companies deliberately lying to the media for their own personal gain. Yet the problem is the media...

FTA: President Donald Trump’s tariff on imported solar panels has led U.S. renewable energy companies to cancel or freeze investments of more than $2.5 billion in large installation projects, along with thousands of jobs, the developers told Reuters.

So are the developers lying? Maybe... but it's still totally legitimate to report that this claim was made. Some things you just have to take at face value because you're not privy to secret boardroom meetings where plans to deceive the public for profit are conceived.

Here is another article from another publication about a different tariff story.

http://thehill.com/policy/finance/391185-three-arkansas-comp...

Based on the reasoning you presented in your OP (pre-edit), I should just assume that they're lying and are really just appealing to Trump's ego in order to maximize profits. Right?

In either case the media can't really know the truth so they just report it and maybe spin the story to one side based on readership.

Well, I guess you can take that position.

I take the position that what the media reports isn't true, or at least it's some sort of propaganda and I look for who's benefiting from the information, unless I see evidence to the contrary.

Regarding the news article you linked, it looks to me like those three companies are indeed running a PR campaign to pressure the administration to give them a deal.

The media is reporting the claim; to reflexively disbelieve the claim because the media is reporting it does not follow logically. Somehow I doubt you'd be bashing the media in your comment if the story delivered propaganda (your words) that supported a position that you agree with.

You are creating a ridiculous straw man. He didn't claim the media is a bunch of liars. The media can't dig into the details and verify every detail of every press release. If a company claims contracts are frozen or canceled there is no way for the media to check whether the projects would happen at all.

The "personal anecdotes" are a series of observations about contracts that are publicly reported combined with an understanding of how companies are incentivized to report contracts. If you don't believe him or find him very credible you don't need to take his word for it, he's just some random guy on the internet whose credibility can't be independently established.

On the other hand, you can undercut his argument by providing evidence that companies always report contracts in an evenhanded way. Of course, they don't thats just PR 101.

> You are creating a ridiculous straw man... The media can't dig into the details and verify every detail of every press release. If a company claims contracts are frozen or canceled there is no way for the media to check whether the projects would happen at all.

Where is the strawman? What you've stated here is literally my argument, that is, it's not the media's fault that billion dollar titans of industry lie to the media for profit, especially because the media lacks the necessary access to verify the claims, so all they can do is report the claim as stated (which is what they did)... or are you suggesting they just never report on industry claims?

> He didn't claim the media is a bunch of liars.

He actually did make that claim farther down this thread, however, I never accused him of suggesting that, all I said was that he is suggesting we "don't trust this story or the media in general". I don't see how you can read anything else other than that out of my comment, so I would appreciate it if you would point out the part of my comment claiming he said that the media is bunch of liars.

> The "personal anecdotes" are a series of observations about contracts that are publicly reported combined with an understanding of how companies are incentivized to report contracts.

His comments are literally unverifiable personal stories from his own experiences, there is no way around it. He could have at least said "companies have been known to do x" and then shown evidence of x (though his own argument precludes his ability to use any media sources as evidence of x), then we could examine the particular case he presented and determine if the facts of that case align with the opinion he is presenting. As as of now we're just taking his word for it.

> If you don't believe him or find him very credible you don't need to take his word for it, he's just some random guy on the internet whose credibility can't be independently established.

... OK? Once again, you're just repeating my own reasoning back to me, he's a random person on the internet spitting out anecdotes to bolster his opinion, not someone presenting evidence that can be independently examined without trusting his stories.

> On the other hand, you can undercut his argument by providing evidence that companies always report contracts in an evenhanded way

First of all, it is impossible to demonstrate proof that "companies always x" and it is disingenuous to ask for such evidence because we don't rely on "always"-level confidence for proof of anything. Further, I am not trying to "undercut his argument" at all, I am critiquing the flawed reasoning that his personal anecdotes are a legitimate reason to disregard this particular story and the media in general.

>> it's not the media's fault that billion dollar titans of industry lie to the media for profit, especially because the media lacks the necessary access to verify the claims, so all they can do is report the claim as stated (which is what they did)

I fail to see the relevance of assigning blame here. If you grant what he suggests then you can apportion blame in a variety of plausible ways.

>>... or are you suggesting they just never report on industry claims?

I'm not sure there is any reasonable solution here. Industry claims, especially projections, can be quite dubious at times. It's difficult to explain why when you are trying to appeal to a wide audience, however. The media just isn't in a good position to verify or discredit claims like that.

>> Where is the strawman? What you've stated here is literally my argument, that is, it's not the media's fault that billion dollar titans of industry lie to the media for profit, especially because the media lacks the necessary access to verify the claims, so all they can do is report the claim as stated (which is what they did)... or are you suggesting they just never report on industry claims?

You just said his argument was "don't trust this story or the media in general." His claim was that in certain circumstances the surface implication of the media's reporting of PR numbers is very misleading. That's it. It's quite a simple statement that in no way implies what you have repeatedly suggested he claims.

>> He actually did make that claim farther down this thread, however, I never accused him of suggesting that, all I said was that he is suggesting we "don't trust this story or the media in general".

I'll take your word for it; he must have deleted it or it is hidden although I can't find it on the thread. I would be surprised if he did that because it is quite a ridiculous statement that would expose him to ridicule and is logically unnecessary for his argument.

Need to answer "Okay, what percentage is canceled and what percentage is frozen?" and "How many of these projects were actually going to happen anyway?" first, which requires fortune telling. It makes no sense to ask for facts when speculating on speculation.

This type of analyses on the media's output needs to be taught in school.

The type that offers no facts and gives anecdotal evidence to support the opinion?

No questions like

> Okay, what percentage is canceled and what percentage is frozen? How many of these projects were actually going to happen anyway?

which were informed by the poster's past experience with public interaction through the media. I'd argue that questions are rarely opinions.

Why didn't the journalist at least cite the source of the informatoin? What if the survey that provided the data gave more details about why the projects were actually canceled/frozen? Should it really be up to the media to decide for me how to interpret the data?

> Why didn't the journalist at least cite the source of the informatoin?

In the article, they cite enough statements made by specific people at specific organizations to support the headline - it's not peer-reviewed academic research, sure, but it's not like they are just making stuff up either.

>> In the article, they cite enough statements made by specific people at specific organizations to support the headline - it's not peer-reviewed academic research, sure, but it's not like they are just making stuff up either.

The 'support' is that the PR department of the company said it. You think corporations always give you unbiased information? They are strongly incentivized, as the comment pointed out, to claim that contracts may be canceled due to reason X when the reality is far more complex. The cost for claiming this is so incredibly low that there is no reason not to do it.

> Why didn't the journalist at least cite the source of the informatoin?

The source is cited in literally the first sentence.

"President Donald Trump’s tariff on imported solar panels has led U.S. renewable energy companies to cancel or freeze investments of more than $2.5 billion in large installation projects, along with thousands of jobs, the developers told Reuters."

I'm not sure if you read this article or are just responding to comments/the title, but this article is just reporting a few statements from solar developers and isn't trying to tell you how to decide to interpret anything. They wrote the total dollar amount of frozen/cancelled investments and quotes solar developers. This is Reuters, it's a pretty boring neutral article.

The article is reporting on an unspecified question asked of unspecified developers. It's another version of "people are saying..." which Fox News popularized. It's just not satisfying without some other detail - like what question they asked or who they talked to.

Edit: read the article to this point [0] which I had assumed was the end to see why I said what I said.

[0]: https://i.imgur.com/9uI6zbt.png

It's now abundantly clear you didn't even attempt to read this article. Paragraph after paragraph listing developers and direct quotes from some of them:

To list a few: Pine Gate Renewables, GTM Research, SunPower Corp, Cypress Creek Renewables LLC, the list goes on.

This isn't a Q&A (and most news isn't). You're not going to get specific questions asked to specific people. Some people like to remain anonymous. Comparing this to fox news "people are saying..." is ridiculous. I don't even have an opinion about this article but not reading an article at all and making pointless commentary about it in the comments irks me.

https://i.imgur.com/9uI6zbt.png

This is where I assumed the article ended. It's just bad presentation, not bad journalism.

Pointless whitespace that makes it seem like the article is over irks me.

It isn't pointless whitespace. There is an iframe there that isn't probably loading

Code: https://imgur.com/vKskTnz

Iframe Contents: https://imgur.com/x0WqzmI

Fascinating to compare this with a recent thread on holding journalists to account for veracity and integrity of their stories.