"Be bold. Make the claim, or don't make the claim. Half-heartedly making the claim is shoddy journalism."
No.
It would be impossible to verify and to say with certainty the fact that Tesla was targeting Union folks - if this were true.
Second - the journo is communicating the opinions of others, not his/her own.
There would be Musk, and a very small handful of trusted lieutenants who would have been behind it (if it happened).
But - one could look at the totality of those who are fired - and find that 'most of the vocal union bakers' were let go.
So what does this mean?
It doesn't prove anything - but it looks pretty bad, doesn't it?
So a journalist talks to some of the current or laid off workers, and they say 'off the record' - that this has happened, and 'we think they did this to kabosh the union agenda' - well, then it's reasonable.
If the journalist is just 'making it up'- that would be a deep dereliction of their duty.
But if 'some were actually saying' this, in this journalists interviews, then it's fair for them to say.
And it would be irresponsible for the journalist to say 'Musk specifically targeted Union advocates' unless they had some pretty good evidence that this were true. Which would be very hard.
> But - one could look at the totality of those who are fired - and find that 'most of the vocal union bakers' were let go.
I don't object to statements like that. Your proposal actually make some attempt to quantify proportionality. The article did no such thing: "pro-union workers were among those fired this week." It doesn't say "mostly pro-union workers were fired" or "most vocal pro-union workers were fired." It isn't reflecting someone else's opinion. It's just an attempt to fit a narrative around zero evidence. If they had interesting evidence, they would report that instead!
> It doesn't prove anything - but it looks pretty bad, doesn't it?
No! Because they didn't actually make any interesting statements of fact. Just that some pro-union employees happen to be among the 1% of fired employees, like you would expect in a population of hundreds.
> And it would be irresponsible for the journalist to say 'Musk specifically targeted Union advocates' unless they had some pretty good evidence that this were true. Which would be very hard.
But they are suggesting it anyways. I think that is similarly irresponsible.
Probably they don't want to spend the time gathering statistics before they rush to be the first to publish on this story, but in preliminary reporting like this, I think they should be hesitant to suggest a narrative they haven't made any attempt to confirm.
