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Comment by Dotnaught | Hacker News Reader

Feel free to email me: tclaburn at theregister dot com

You can see here how "journalism" runs to stuff that's not based on any data. 5 million + car accidents, and a probably total bogus retelling from someone probably not even sure what they were doing (ie, did she read manual?) will make it into a news article.

You're assuming this will instantly be spun into a story based on this one anecdote. It might be used as one anecdote of many, it may be represented as one point of view among many, it may never end up becoming a story at all.

"You can see here how" a journalist is choosing to investigate a possibly promising lead while their profession continues to be misunderstood.

We'll see how much "quality" we get out of tclaburn but I don't think it's gonna be an article full of numbers and facts, but rather outrage and feelings, judging by the "quality" that newspaper tends to produce.

Have you actually read any content at the register.com? It’s often tongue in cheek, but openly so, and rarely - if ever - (in my experience) dishonest. Don’t assume all media outlets and journalists are the same.

How else do you expect a journalist to start an investigation?

Apparently all news reports must be based solely on trends from statistically valid publications. Ignore the fact that most news is of the "man bites dog" variety and not the "dog bites man trend decreases 3% year-over-year" variety.

So what should they do? Copy OP and publish as is with no follow up, investigation or additional information? or should they do their job and investigate a claim that could be of interest to the public?

Not like they could get information from OP, and then make a FOIA request of the two departments OP mentioned to identify similar reports and write the facts up in an article for us to read, understand and decide for ourselves if it's an issue. That's good journalism: give the facts and let the public make opinions, not the current system which gives the opinions and let the public make up the facts. Just like this post, deciding it's a wide spread issue and the comments agreeing it is without any evidence.

I don't think you understand what real journalists do. Bad ones might perhaps just "forward" an unchallenged claim as your uncle does on Facebook. Journalists and editors trained at journalism schools have a little more integrity and skepticism than your uncle.

Ah yes the "no true journalist" argument

Wait, so your contention is that a profession is defined by its worst practitioners? OK, in that case, software developers are all script kiddies.

Except if you pay attention to any of this you see that they mostly forward unchallenged claims, if they fit a narrative, and do not follow-up, offer no backstory.

The Register are pretty good, to be honest. They don't run just any old crap, and are actually technical.

The problem is it's mostly coverage of the Tesla "scandal" stuff.

And there is almost never any follow-up on this stuff.

https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/26/tesla_labor_law/

------

Tesla has been ordered to correct its unlawful labor practices, and its supremo Elon Musk must delete a related tweet from three years ago.

....

The decision also directs self-styled "Technoking" Musk to delete a May 20, 2018 tweet.

> Here is the tweet BTW:

"Nothing stopping Tesla team at our car plant from voting union. Could do so tmrw if they wanted. But why pay union dues & give up stock options for nothing? Our safety record is 2X better than when plant was UAW & everybody already gets healthcare."

The ruling directs the vehicle maker to offer to rehire plaintiff and former employee Richard Ortiz and pay him lost wages, and to strike unlawful disciplinary information from the record of both Ortiz and another employee, Jose Moran.

---

The issue is the follow-up and background doesn't get covered.

In their defense, Telsa points out that Ortiz was fired for dishonesty and lying to an investigator. That being a union supporter was not related (they claim) and that the person making the decision to fire Ortiz was ALSO a union supporter and they consistently fired folks for dishonesty. I'm not saying this is accurate, but it gets ZERO coverage.

Employees had taken Pratt's workday (HR type system) photo from a work/business sytem to use it to harass Pratt (claimed Pratt). The NLRB said this shouldn't be investigated but should be "a discussion between two employees". Who knows what's true, but the constant one sided stories are BORING. And many employees DO put things on company systems and DO expect company to avoid having others take them and use them in facebook and other posts without their permission.

Hope you don't employ sensationalistic style in your journalism and try to have an in depth story based on the debate here on HN.

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