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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Wouldn't it have been nice if the NYT went out and bought a couple of GoPros before the test drive? Musk obviously improved his recordkeeping, how hard would it have been for the NYT to up their game as well?

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This is what blows my mind in both directions:

1) A reporter not recording everything he does in the age of GoPro and a 2 TB harddrives at Best Buy.

2) Tesla did record damn near everything: GPS, battery, display, temperature (internal and target), charge duration, etc.

Metrics are king, and I think we are ushering in a new age of "you can't bullshit me, I recorded it too" journalism.

I think a raw recording of the entire trip inside the cabin is a pretty personal thing to ask for someone used to only having a heavily reviewed and edited public facade. Then there's the matter of hosting all that video, and of successfully summarizing it into a form that's both properly balanced and digestible by a the audience. Certainly doable, but it's a new skill-set that would take time to develop.

I was not trying to imply that this data should be generally available, just that he should have access to it as definitive proof, at least to his superiors.

Same here. Since you really can't take notes while driving, I would have used some in-car video as a form of notetaking and nothing else.

Or, we are entering in a new age of "if you can't write your story with the same rigor as a top law firm would write an M&A contract, I'll hang you with your every choice of wording".

It's possible a damning story in an influential newspaper could have as much impact on Tesla's business as an M&A contract.

If I were the journalist I would have got my facts checked with Tesla. If I were Tesla, I would have checked that my response was ironclad, especially when accusing a journalist of lying. Now, they have two problems.

Well, let's remember, Musk didn't start recording so much until the TopGear thing happened.

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