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This is the story of how ten media outlets misrepresented what I wrote about Elon Musk, thereby proving my point about the flawed mechanics of rapid-response journalism.My goal here is three-fold:Clearing the record on what I did/didn’t say in my original post.Reviewing the available evidence to both defend and double-down on my original arguments.Using the media’s response to illustrate a complex problem still in need of a solution.Please bear in mind that my quarrel isn’t really with any of the writers whose work I’m going to deconstruct. This is about the systems they work in, and our role as responsible readers.[You can read my original post here, though you won’t need to have done so to understand what follows.]Crucial Points of Preface:As I said in the opening last go around, this is a nuanced story with multiple morals. What follows isn’t short and doesn’t conform to any easy narrative. I’d be skeptical of anyone claiming to fairly represent it in a passing sentence or two.I suspect that Musk won’t be overjoyed by everything I have to say (especially as it concerns his last email exchange with BuzzFeed News). But I do think he’ll ultimately agree that I’ve gone to lengths to get the story right, and to view things through an appropriately wide lens.Just so, I don’t think many in the media will be thrilled with how they come out in this particular story. But I’ve taken pains to be both specific and thorough. I’m also leaving the door open for corrections and counter-commentary (which I’ll amplify/reward as they arise).In the interest of cutting length, I’ve relegated several sections to appendices. I’ve linked them throughout where it makes sense, and also posted a collection of said links at the end for further reading.What Happened?On the morning of July 17th, Adam Chavez, then a stranger to me, tweeted a link to something I’d written a day earlier on Quora about Elon Musk and his role in the Thai cave rescue.Finally a thorough piece of reporting on the @elonmusk Thai submarine fiasco. By a non-reporter.Journalism is dead. But if we can fight to distribute pieces like this, with high-signal-to-noise ratio, we can resurrect.https://t.co/3hZEvG3kKZ— 🤣🤔🤓Adam Chavez (@adamchavez) July 17, 2018A number of other Twitter users also did the same, which just so happened to catch Musk’s attention. He favorited four such tweets at various points throughout the day. Then, come late evening, he opted to retweet Adam’s version, attached to an apology to rescuer Vern Unsworth (which we’ll get to).While I wasn’t entirely surprised that many in the media took umbrage at Musk’s endorsement of Adam’s “journalism is dead” hyperbole, I was surprised by their collective response to what I myself had written. My comments were more measured and concrete— and, as we’ll soon see, not exactly off target.To be clear, I love great journalism. I’m a subscriber to three major papers. I religiously pass on the best of what I read to others (as I consider to be my very enjoyable civic duty). While I suppose cries of “fake news” come cheaply in some circles, most of my friends and colleagues share my appreciation for quality journalism — which is exactly why we hate bad journalism. It’s because we know how important the press is that we hate seeing its power and influence undermined by the structural failures of the rapid-response / hot-take machine.Newspapers have always been written on deadlines. That hasn’t changed. But other things have changed: the age, experience, and compensation of the average reporter; the depth of supporting research and fact-check teams; the average editor contribution; and the volume of stories expected per writer. As internet business models continue to push most of these metrics the wrong way, are we to believe that this hasn’t affected the accuracy and/or quality of coverage at all?I think the best outlets still get far more things right than wrong. Even so, I’d argue that the number of flawed stories is significant enough to be worth talking about in measured, concrete terms.And, as it happens, they’ve given me a very concrete set of examples to work with.A Failed AppealI sent the following email to the New York Times’ Opinion Desk in the immediate aftermath.[Note: I’ve omitted one sentence, as it named two publishers that I’ve opted not to include here, having decided to stick to just 10 total cases.]Hey folks,I have a piece that I think is a great fit for you.For context, I wrote the Quora post that Elon Musk used as context for his apology to Vern Unsworth last week.This story is the sequel to that.To my count, 10 writers from major papers/outlets grossly misrepresented what I had actually argued (one to a degree that likely qualifies as libel).Their most common misrepresentation is that I’d defended Musk. What I actually said about the slur was: “gross tactic”, “extraordinarily negative claim”, “without attempting to exonerate him”, “we’re right to condemn him”, “disproportionate response”, and “terrible judgment call”. I even punctuated those descriptions with an encouragement to Unsworth to sue for libel, suggesting that “if he can’t afford to, he should be helped”.As such, I’m looking for a chance to deconstruct the charges against me, both to defend myself and to showcase examples of why journalism-loving people often still report having a measure of media distrust in certain contexts.I believe in (and strongly support) journalism as an institution fundamental to human flourishing. Nothing in what I have to say will speak poorly of the media as a whole. My comments will be surgical and narrow to a certain type of problem. Given how clear my piece was in condemnation of Musk's slur, this was something all of them should have been able to get right.Given the wild imbalance between the size of my megaphone and those of the writers who reported on me in error, I’m hoping you’ll allow me a chance to speak my side before the ink on this chapter dries.I’m happy to work the piece to whatever length, and I’m happy to submit my collection of proof (quite expansive) to your fact-checking team.Thanks!Jeremy ArnoldI never heard back from them.While I won’t speculate on their thought-process, I do find their silence troubling. Their recognition as a global newspaper of record makes them the most obvious means of redress. If they won’t use their platform to promote corrections to major news stories, who will?(That’s not an entirely rhetorical question.)Criticizing the news media — for underplaying or overplaying stories, for getting something wrong — is entirely right. News reporters and editors are human, and make mistakes. Correcting them is core to our job. [...] Praise them when you think they’ve done a good job and criticize them when you think they could do better. We’re all in this together.Source: New York Times Editorial Board.The Story No One WroteTo give the sense of what I thought should have been written about the spat between Unsworth and Musk in the first place, I challenged myself to come up with an example using only 500 words and information readily available to the press at the time of the incident.War of Claims Between Elon Musk, Thai Cave Rescue HeroIn an interview with CNN Friday night, Vern Unsworth took an uncharitable view of the rescue contributions of businessman Elon Musk. Unsworth, an experienced caver instrumental to the successful recovery of the boys and their coach, expressed his opinion that the mini-submarine which Musk had donated was “a total PR stunt” that had “absolutely no chance of working”. He suggested that Musk could “stick [the sub] where it hurts”.Musk lashed back on Twitter Sunday morning, defending the machine’s viability. In the course of doing so, however, he employed a slur (“pedo guy”) that negatively implicated Mr. Unsworth’s motivations for residing in Chiang Rai. Musk offered no evidence for the accusation beyond the implication of a gross stereotype.While Unsworth (who reported this morning that he might sue for libel) was the wronged party, his views on Musk’s contributions were not richly informed. The latter had on July 10th posted an email excerpt of his discussions with Richard Stanton, the lead diver on the rescue team. In it, Mr. Stanton instructed Musk to continue working on the mini-sub, as there were concerns about extracting the smallest boy using their preferred strategy. Musk said in reply: “If it isn’t needed or won’t help, that would be great to know. Otherwise, it would be very helpful to have as much design direction as possible.”We were also able to confirm that Musk and his employees had supplied significant additional support and technological consultation outside the sub. We can also confirm that the sub itself had not been ruled out as a back-up plan. The final rescuers were still in the cave system when at least one major pump burst and water levels began to rise at dangerous speeds. Had this failure occurred earlier, or had the fortunate break of rain not continued, the preferred rescue method may not have worked. Given multiple reports of the increased difficulty of accessing the boys’ location with higher water levels, options like the mini-sub would almost certainly have been tried (the likelihood of success being a question on which all may only speculate). Even initial failure, however, wouldn’t necessarily have been fatal. A smaller version of the sub was also under construction, and could have arrived a day or two later.While Mr. Unsworth was misguided in his assessment and tone, the rapid and not always correct flow of information in crowded rescue environments may have left him misinformed as to who contributed what. He was likely unaware that Mr. Stanton had encouraged the sub’s creation. He was also very likely exhausted.While Mr. Musk (who had previously expressed frustration at what he felt was undue media skepticism of his motives), could partially claim the same exhaustion defense, his disproportionate response was widely responded to with condemnation.At the time of reporting, Musk had deleted his tweets about Unsworth, but had yet to issue a public apology.Had something like the above been the average coverage, I find it improbable that Musk would have engaged negatively with anyone (especially if something like this had been written about the “PR stunt” narrative in the 36 or so hours between Unsworth’s CNN interview and Musk’s reply). While this doesn’t at all excuse how Musk responded, it does raise the question of why the average coverage diverged so far from the ideal.What I’m ArguingBoiling it down, I’m making my stand on two hills:That several major media outlets misrepresented my original post.That said post was correct in its essential points.As to what those essential points were:That Musk’s involvement in the rescue effort consisted of costly, credible, welcomed, good faith attempts to add significant value.That we have zero evidence that the mini-subs weren’t a viable back-up plan.That major media outlets routinely promote lazy, lopsided, and/or poorly-framed coverage of Musk and his companies for motives other than positive journalism.That Unsworth provoked Musk based on incomplete/incorrect information.That while we should soundly condemn Musk for his comments re: Unsworth, we also need to place them in context (not to exonerate, but to understand).(All are encouraged to compare my original post against any of the points made here, or to criticize the original on any number of dimensions. All I ask for is diligence and some basic courtesy.)Profiles in MisrepresentationThis section was originally much longer. I ultimately decided to limit myself to ten examples, all from major outlets (1m+ Facebook likes).#1: The Guardian(Section: US News. Author title: Journalist.)Musk did apologize for his comment on Twitter, but only after posting a highly flattering posting by a user on Quora that defended his actions [...].Let’s start with “highly flattering”. It’s a curious take. While I did argue that several of the negative claims against Musk were specious, I didn’t actually say much of anything all that positive about him. The closest I came to praise was when I described him as “a wealthy problem-solver with a long history of responding to charity requests on Twitter”. But those are 14 words of out nearly 3,000, and their accuracy happens to be both objective and uncontroversial.The problem with phrases like “highly flattering” is that they suggest to the reader that what’s linked is too biased to be worth reading. Was it? If I’m guilty as charged, which things did my bias cloud me towards? What did I over-state to Musk’s advantage? The author never says. The only way I can see flattery is if the author imagines that Musk being cleared of some of the charges against him would be flattering to his image, in which case the question isn’t really one of flattery but of whether I was right — which isn’t a line of inquiry that the author seemed all that interested in pursuing.Worse, however, is the author’s suggestion that I “defended [Musk’s] actions”.Musk was accused of many things. Did I defend him in places? As the evidence dictated, sure. But did I defend him of the very conspicuous thing which led to the writing of the author’s article? No. I did the opposite, multiple times, using unambiguous language.If a man is accused of several crimes, you would hardly suggest that a witness who advocated condemnation in regards to the worst crime was speaking in the accused’s defense, whatever they may have said about the lesser charges. (My comments otherwise were akin to considering mitigating circumstances during sentencing, and had nothing to do with questioning the justness of a verdict that I consistently upheld.)—#2: CNN(Section: Money -> Tech. Author title: Reporter.)[Musk’s] apology to Unsworth came in a two-part tweet, posted in response to another Twitter user who linked to a story defending the Tesla CEO.A few more are like this, where much of what I’d say in response is already covered above.That said, a brief note about author titles: I’m including them demonstrate their diversity. It hasn’t been clear to me for years what level of responsibility one should equate with any given title. I’ll also note that zero of these articles included a title in the byline. You had to click through to another page, and said pages didn’t always elaborate on the author’s expertise relative to the subject. I find this puzzling. The pessimistic view is that it’s to obscure a decline in authorial expertise. Perhaps there’s a more wholesome reason? If so, I’d be interested to hear thoughts about that in the comments.—#3: Engadget(Section: Business. Author title: Associate Editor.)He also retweeted a Quora post (via a tweet stating "journalism is dead") that defended most of his actions in the rescue. The article notes that Musk shrugged off credit, gave shout-outs to the dive, pump and generator teams, and only persisted with the sub at the behest of Stanton. Furthermore, the article calls media reporting of the backlash the "criticism machine," and likened sites like BBC to "internet trolls."I was excited about this one at first. “Defended most of his actions in the rescue” is actually a pretty fair and reasonable take.But then I kept reading…Now, to be clear, I love the BBC. That’s one of several reasons why I wouldn’t “liken” them to internet trolls. What I said was: “Sadder yet, this skepticism wasn’t limited to internet trolls”, which I used as a segue to a BBC tweet containing a link to their liveblog, which in turn contained several quite skeptical and unfair blurbs that likely contributed to Musk’s negative response (we’ll get to them).Suggesting that two parties have performed the same negative action isn’t to imply that they’re alike in other respects. I wasn’t at all surprised that Twitter trolls got Musk wrong. I was surprised that the BBC got him wrong, which is exactly why I said “sadder yet”.(I do want to point out, however, that Engadget also published this take, which was about the only real attempt at sanity and fairness I found in all my reading. So kudos to author Daniel Cooper.)—#4: India Times(Section: Tech News. Author title: Senior Tech Correspondent.)[Musk] also retweeted a Quora post with an article defending his actions.Nothing to add here, other than to report that India Times is not in fact the same outlet as Times of India. This caused me some initial confusion. Both seem quite popular though.[EDIT: Apparently my clarity was premature. A few readers have informed me that the two outlets are part of the same organization. See below.]Indiatimes the website was created in the early days of the internet infancy in India. Times of India is the largest printed Newspaper in india and Indiatimes was their online portal. Now Indiatimes is to TOI as Indy100 is to The Independent.— Sam Albuquerque (@OfficialABQ) September 8, 2018—#5: Sky News(Section: World News. Author title: No writer attributed.)The tweet was made in reply to an article defending and celebrating Mr Musk.Now I’m also “celebrating” him? What does that even mean?—#6: Slate(Section: Tech -> “The Industry”. Author title: Assistant Social Media Editor.)[T]he apology appeared in a response to another user’s tweet that linked to a defense of MuskDon’t worry: it’s going to get more interesting soon.—#7: The Daily Beast(Section: Unassigned. Author title: Writer & Journalist.)The Quora article praised by Musk in his tweets described the town of Chiang Rai, where Unsworth lives, as a “known hot spot for sex trafficking and child prostitution,” raising questions about how sorry he really was.Well, this is new!Sadly, it isn’t better. A diligent reader might note that the author’s quotation marks don’t match mine in my original. Why does this matter? Because I was quoting a linked article, written by a Thai correspondent, who was in turn quoting local police.Now, it is true that said link was broken at first. I fixed it some two hours after the author’s piece came out. But the presence of even a broken link in quotes should have been a hint, and a very quick (if dodgy) Google search would have unearthed the original article containing that phrase in connection to that location. There were also several more like it. That northern provinces like Chiang Rai are hotbeds of underage sex workers (many of them poor migrants from Laos/Myanmar) is a well-known problem.But all of that is really an aside anyway, as the author’s argument totally elides what I said immediately after the quote/link. I explained that Musk’s choice of slur wasn’t exactly random, then went on to say that angrily grabbing at stereotypes is a “gross tactic”, for which “we’re right to condemn him”.(I’m also a little curious at why the author — and/or their editor — thought so well of this argument as to include it in their subheadline: “The tech mogul has apologized for calling a cave diver a ‘pedo guy’. But why did he praise an article that describes the man’s hometown as a child-sex hot spot?” Did they just imagine that none of their readers would click through to read those comments in context? It’s concerning to think what such an assumption implies.)—#8: Mashable(Section: Unassigned. Author title: Senior Editor.)While the apology itself contains a fair dose of criticism of Unsworth, it also refers to a Quora article on the subject that's quite soft on Musk and critical of Unsworth.As for Unsworth, I didn’t say much about him. I gave a brief description of how he helped the rescue (all very positive), then added that he “chose to throw scorn at Musk’s motives” (which he very obviously did, on camera, in the video I embedded directly before said comment).I’ve been exceptionally clear all along that I don’t think the two men’s approaches were equally bad. Unsworth shooting first doesn’t justify Musk’s response. But Unsworth did shoot first, and that is part of the story. Would my take have been more informative or fair or accurate had I left that out?As for the author’s claim vis-a-vis Musk, I’ll largely reiterate what I’ve said above. I struggle to conceive a reasonable frame of reference in which a comment to the effect of “you were in the wrong and if you don’t make things right I hope that your opponents give money to the guy you said a terrible thing to so that he can sue you” is tantamount to being “quite soft” on someone.—#9: Gizmodo(Section: News. Author title: Editor of Gizmodo Blog ‘Paleofuture’)The tweet also links out to a Quora post that describes media coverage of Musk as a “fake news” conspiracy.This was my personal favorite.What I said was:For all Donald Trump’s complaints about the “fake news” media conspiracies against him, Elon Musk has by far the more legitimate claim.What that sentence doesn’t suggest is that all media coverage of Musk (the author’s neglect of a qualifier implies a collective whole) is a conspiracy. I did argue that Musk has a more legitimate claim to Trump’s complaint than Trump does (which I stand by), but there’s a world of difference between “some conspiracies are affecting coverage” and “all coverage is the product of conspiracy”.The author’s bungled comprehension gives the impression that I waved off all criticism of Musk as “fake news”. I did no such thing. What I did say was: (1) that the media failed to tell this story with appropriate nuance, (2) that Musk has been the regular victim of “vicious, unfounded criticism”, (3) that it’s often “weirdly difficult to get a balanced view of the man and his work”, and (4) that “waves of shoddy journalism” were negatively contributing to his behavior.As the author has any interest in defending any of those claims, I’m all ears. But I feel that the wealth of evidence on my side isn’t so easily dismissed as the author would have it (see this appendix for starters).[Note: I do regret “vicious”. I should have said “bad faith”. While vicious does fit the commentary of some, especially on social media, it isn’t a fair description of the average. That hyperbole was unhelpful. Mea culpa.]—#10: The Verge(Section: Internet Culture. Author title: Internet culture writer.)Emphasis mine:On Tuesday, Musk retweeted a fan who declared that “journalism is dead” and linked to a Quora post that defended Musk at length, both for his involvement in the rescue mission and his now-infamous “pedo” tweet.This was my least favorite. And that’s probably because it’s straight-up libel.The other errors were largely of the type that one might expect from carelessness compounded by a rush to publish. (Hence why I think the “we need to get out our vaguely differentiated take immediately to secure our clickshare” model is fundamentally broken. It takes otherwise talented writers and brings out their worst.) But this? This is different. This is someone either not bothering to read what they’re reporting on, or else reading it with a cavernous lack of comprehension, or else choosing to wilfully misrepresent it because doing so made for a “better” story.I don’t know which of those options I hate least.As far as my personal preference goes, I’d rather the author not be disciplined if they prove willing to learn from this. But I can’t see how this isn’t a cause for a public retraction and serious internal discussion. If this was just the author’s personal Twitter-take, whatever. But this was published as news.(That said, I did find some humor in the fact that the author used “now-infamous”, which echoes my prior description of the tweet as “already-infamous”. This really should have been something of a hint about how I felt about it.)A Few AsidesZero of the above articles had anything to visually mark them as opinion pieces, either on-page or in their Google News snippets. While perhaps some of those publishers don’t classify any of their posts as real news, I question then why any such articles would be made available via Google News. How is a reader supposed to know what to take seriously?As per SharedCount, those 10 posts were shared a collective 7.3k times on Facebook. Based on typical averages, this implies hundreds of thousands of clicks. That’s a lot of ad impressions. I would encourage said publishers to consider taking what they made from those articles, multiplying it by an appropriate number, and donating it to charity.More Non-Rhetorical Questions!Why didn’t a single outlet (other than Vox, who published their take two days after mine) make a serious effort at putting any of this into a larger context? Even something as simple as looking into the “PR stunt” narrative could have gone a long way to stem the fallout.Why didn’t a single outlet address any of the concerns in my original story? Beyond the 10+ that actively misrepresented me, many more mentioned my piece in passing without any acknowledgment of (much less response to) what I’d written. Who is being served by this type of journalism?These are questions I don’t think it unreasonable to desire real answers to.And Then There’s TwitterI originally had a section full of tweets by various media types here. I ultimately deleted them for the same reason that I pulled the authors’ names above. Trolls on both sides of the Musk divide are a real problem on the social internet, and I don’t want to be responsible for mobilizing them.That said, I do want to briefly address one recurring take within the criticism that I found on Twitter, and one common feature of it.I. The Ad Hominem ExpressMany dismissed what I wrote because it was written on Quora. (This isn’t an assumption. We’re talking explicit, wildly condescending commentary to this end.)I’m not offended as it concerns me. But I am a little offended as it concerns Quora. I’ve been a user since 2011, and my life has been deeply enriched by the wealth of CEOs, PhDs, investors, journalists, and everyday experts (at thousands of different things) who share their insights there.You know who else feels the same way?I could literally spend all day reading @Quora.— RainnWilson (@rainnwilson) March 7, 2018Dwight considers Quora an exceptional way to learn, second only to a good fire drill.More seriously though, I’d like to highlight something the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman said in a Quora session back in 2016:Quora is the largest platform on the internet officially moderated by a version of the Golden Rule: “Be Nice; Be Respectful”. As any longtime writer on Quora can attest, that policy makes a massive difference.I’d also encourage all to read this love letter to Quora, posted in July by a Chilean midwife who works with low-incomes families. She just got into Yale because of the advice, kindness, and encouragement of real-life experts on Quora. (This is one of dozens of stories like it.)Now, yes, Quora is an open platform. That means quality of content varies by contributor. But if you doubt your ability to find some of the best content on the internet there (by quality of writing or quality of research or depth of human experience), I invite you to PM me for a list of writers to follow. Full money-back guarantee. I can also give you tips about improving the quality of your feed.II. The Soul of SnarkI love Twitter for its strengths. But Twitter has a problem. Even with the doubled character-count and the advent of threads, short/snippy tweets still dominate the platform. Popularity-seeking users are encouraged to be brief to the point of a near-total reduction in context and nuance. Combined with the ever-popular posture of casual disregard as coolness, this has a predictable effect.It escapes me how journalists who don’t fight entropy here are then surprised when their credibility as serious tellers of complex truths suffers accordingly. Plenty of this set found cause to mock and dismiss what I had to say (mostly via short/snippy tweets). But I couldn’t find even one that thought to really ask why thousands of people (including some very bright, very measured minds) found my arguments compelling. Snark was easier.Which journalistic mission is that approach consistent with?(Poetically, the journalist who won the sympathy/outrage of his peers when called a “jackass” by Musk went on to refer to me as a “dumbass” for writing my take. He also called my post “unbearably thin agitprop that doesn’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny” without actually offering up any scrutiny, which I feel is the embodiment of Lazy Twitter in a nutshell.)OK, Enough Appetizers — Bring On The Fact-Check BuffetLet’s be clear up front: I’m not a journalist. While I am a writer who happens to have been published some 20 times in major outlets, I didn’t go to journalism school, I don’t cultivate sources, and I don’t have an investigative budget. My longform writing is just a hobby. And what I do best in that capacity is compiling and cross-referencing public info for the purpose of supplying context and/or challenging thin/misleading narratives — i.e., analysis, not reporting.That said, I did reach out to a few individuals in Musk’s ecosystem when I began writing this follow-up to see what further evidence they could add to the existing record. In all cases, I think what was available at the time was fully sufficient to have allowed all who were interested in accuracy to get this story right. But the extra detail does add something of an exclamation mark.As to recounting all that evidence, I went back and forth for weeks on what to include here, and what to relegate to the appendices. My notes grew far more expansive than I could ever hope to get someone to read outside of book form. As such, I had to pick some limiting principle that still allowed me to make a strong case within a single write-up.Three options presented themselves, each with their own pros/cons. Not by coincidence, these three options were tied directly to the three main times that Musk was prickly on Twitter about this whole affair.Deconstructing what the BBC said about Musk, and what followed (i.e., Musk’s replying back with his “not the subject matter expert” tweet).Deconstructing what Journalist #1 said about Musk, and what followed (i.e., Musk calling him a jackass).Deconstructing what a New York Times’ opinion columnist said about Musk (both in their op-ed and on Twitter), and what followed (i.e., Musk teeing off on Unsworth).It quickly became clear that #1 could be accomplished within the bounds of #2 without adding much length. As such, I’ve gone that route, and pushed #3 to this appendix.The Many Concerns of Journalist #1While I don’t think they were agent zero in any of their takes (hard to tell), it so happens that pretty much every criticism they raised ended up being a major plot point in this narrative.(Note: If Journalist #1 wants to engage with this, I’m happy to swap to their actual name. But if they don’t, I’m happy to let them remain anonymous. Figured they should get to decide. In the interim, I’ll delete any comment that mentions their real name. The world doesn’t need more trolling.)Now on to the tweets...Let’s examine that “brief neutral mention”, shall we?Elon Musk's offer 'not practical' for cave mission, Thai rescue chief says https://t.co/Sc9awbB2XJ pic.twitter.com/CXRy7l4Ia1— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 10, 2018First, notice the embedded link. It connects to the BBC’s liveblog from the rescue. The noteworthy fact here (that somehow no one else actually noted) is that the link itself doesn’t connect to any specific blurb. When you click through, you just see whichever blurb has been posted most recently.This made me wonder: based on when Musk read and replied to that tweet, which blurbs may he have been responding to?The first was published at the same time as the initial tweet. But two more were added before Musk responded (and thus would have been earlier in his reading). All three follow.(Note: Timestamps are Mountain Time.)#1:This does seem pretty neutral and brief. But that really depends on how you parse it. One reading (which a SpaceX employee who worked on the team says was reinforced in their private discussions with Osotthanakorn’s office) is that the sub wasn’t a practical fit for the simple reason that it arrived far too late. By the time it was available for use, two of the three extractions were already done. Why change horses midstream, especially when the current process is working and the new one untested? This being obvious, Musk knew before he left that the sub was almost certainly only a backup option — hence why he publicly expressed his contentment with that.The second interpretation — the one adopted by many journalists — is that Osotthanakorn was finding his most polite way of saying “yeah, that thing had no chance of working”. Weirdly, there’s zero hard evidence for this interpretation. (I get into every supposed claim that I could dig up here. All were thin to empty.) This makes what Unsworth said to CNN interview after the rescue was over all the more interesting. Where did he get that narrative from?#2:Note the difference between “no use” and “no present use”. You don’t have a present use for your insurance until you do. That doesn’t mean you don’t have a use for carrying an active policy.Also, I challenge readers to identify the journalistic value of that first paragraph. Doesn’t it read an awful lot like Unsworth’s “just a PR stunt”?(While we’re on the subject, I’d love for someone to tell me what the journalistic value was of asking Unsworth that question about Musk in the first place. The two hadn’t crossed paths, Unsworth knew little to nothing about Musk’s involvement, and the interviewer even makes it clear that they’re asking Unsworth to essentially repeat on offhand comment for the cameras. That all kind of feels like the province of tabloids, no?)#3:Note the time. 7:22am. The time of Musk’s reply to the BBC? 8:03am.Put yourself in Musk’s shoes. How would you feel? Especially in connection with the two other snippets. Especially in connection with the hordes on Twitter using the uncharitable interpretation of Osottanakorn’s comment about practicality to strengthen their own pre-existing narratives at Musk’s expense.Are you going to respond positively? Or are you going to try to set the record straight (maybe not with as much grace as you’d like)?Anyway, now back to Journalist #1.Snark aside, look at the underlying narrative here: Musk must hate the fact that he couldn’t rescue those kids using his own contraption. But is that true? He was effusive in his praise of virtually everyone involved with the rescue. He’d said all along that he didn’t expect the sub to be used as Plan A. And his comment to the BBC was about correcting misinformation (however roughly). What actual evidence is Journalist #1 relying on?As I said in the original, there’s an old proverb about no raindrop believing itself responsible for the flood. These tweets aren’t harmless. They form narratives that very easily solidify into “truths”. And seeing as no media outlets (outside Vox) considered it in their interests to re-examine these narratives in the nearly two months since, this version of the story may have held more or less forever.I can’t see how that isn’t a problem.(The next tweet comes from the NYT opinion columnist, with the response coming from Journalist #1.)To address those concerns, let’s introduce a quote from Jill Heinerth, Explorer in Residence with the Royal Canadian Geographic Society. Per her bio, she’s a cave diver and “friend/colleague” of several of the rescuers, including Stanton and Harris. The quote comes from a YouTube explainer she did on the dynamics of underwater cave rescues.The difference between open-water diving and cave diving is akin to the difference between a stroll in the park and a space walk.Ergo, having caving and diving experience separately isn’t itself all that relevant. Not that those experiences are without any value in aiding the understanding. But to rely on them to judge “the face-value stupidity” of the sub seems like quite the reach — especially when Stanton, who is perhaps the foremost cave diver/rescuer in the world, is the one who thought (and still thinks, as per his comments to BuzzFeed News this week) that a sub happens to be a great idea.(As for the fear that a star-struck official would allow Musk to kill people with what Journalist #1 called a “death tube”, I get into that here.)Later in that same video, Heinerth went on to say:Although some of these ideas [including Elon’s sub] sound crazy, brainstorming at this point in the rescue was critical.We’ll loop back to that brainstorming idea in a minute. It’s important. But one last tweet first.(This was the tweet that inspired Musk’s “jackass” retort.)The main picture is of the sub. The top-right graphic shows estimated dimensions of the cave’s tightest choke point (38cm x 72cm). The mid-right graphic shows the conversion of 38cm to inches (14.96″). And the bottom-right graphic is the following screencap.So, a few notes here:The concern about getting stuck behind a jammed sub is inherently reasonable — which is exactly why Musk’s team designed an inflatable sub to the same dimensions as the hard-shell. If it got stuck during fit-check, the rescuers could simply deflate it. And if that ruled out the 60” version, a 48” alternative was under construction. Put simply, I don’t see how dimensions were ever the real issue. (In the BuzzFeed News article that came out a few days ago, note that while Stanton is paraphrased as saying that he can’t recall personally providing exact dimensions to Musk, he doesn’t mention anything about fit having been a concern. In fact, no one on the rescue team did. Ever. Until Unsworth, who wasn’t involved in the dives, made his comment days after the rescue was over. And he was half a foot off in his estimate of the sub’s length. Plus it isn’t actually clear that he ever saw it himself.)I can’t speak to potential injuries or how much extra oxygen pulling the sub would consume vs. Plan A. But the person who could speak to those things would be Stanton, and he was the one who told Musk to continue building it, saying it “may well be used”.The OP may not have been able to see advantages to the sub over Plan A. That doesn’t mean there weren’t any. Two huge ones: (i) An insulated sub means no hypothermia. Given that hypothermia was a suspect in the death of the Thai SEAL, and given that the boys were much thinner and frailer, this is no small thing. (ii) If you read the accounts of the final leg of the rescue, particularly Jason Mallison’s (who was shepherding the smallest boy — the one who Stanton had mentioned to Musk as being the object of their concern), it’s a miracle that the child made it. The mask didn’t really fit, and the current was a constant threat to knock it off. Those concerns wouldn’t have been an issue within a contained capsule. (As I get into in more detail here, the US Air Force team leading the operation planning sold Plan A on the premise of 3-5 expected casualties, and felt optimistic even at that. Had the subs been there much earlier in the process, and had the golden window for getting the kids out via Plan A not been so narrow, why would the subs not have been tested?)The people to listen to were the cave divers close to the problem, agreed. And that’s exactly who Musk listened to. A good journalist may have noted where in his tweets Musk shifted from talking about a pressure pod (an inflatable sack, essentially) to a rescue pod (the sub), and what event precipitated said shift. (Hint: the phrase “cave experts in Thailand” is involved.)Tales Untold, Part 2One of the most under-reported aspects of this story was all the work that Musk’s teams did outside building the mini-subs. In the course of asking someone at SpaceX what happened to the 10 Tesla Powerwalls that had been sent over (which I only learned about via Reddit), this is what they told me.The purpose of the Powerwalls was general backup power, and for the possibility of powering pumps inside the tunnel in case voltage losses were too great in the cables from the external generators. They were not used in the operation, but 10 were donated to a local Thai hospital (I think that is where they ended up) when we left. In general, we shipped everything that we thought might help, even if low probability.Also: we haven't mentioned all of the survey work we were doing, which was a huge amount of effort, including mobilizing professional surveyors in LA in case they were needed and shipping in professional surveyors from Singapore. The team met with the rescue operation personnel daily to assess best how they could help in any other manner. They requested assistance working on a cave survey in the event the backup drilling operation was going to be needed. We flew specialists and equipment out to support this effort from Singapore at very short notice.We also shipped underwater tool sets in case we had to widen portions of the tunnel.Note the irony here: Musk not publicizing any of this ended up fueling media hyper-focus on the one thing he did mention, which led to accusations of that one thing being a PR stunt.Why did Musk not tweet about all these other efforts? There was no real need to. He’d sent a ground team (led by SpaceX engineer Chris Bowman). When they were asked for something, Musk made sure it got expedited. There was no need for crowdsourced wisdom, hence no need to discuss it in the same way. I’m still not even sure I know all of what Musk and his teams/companies ultimately donated — and I doubt that they find it all that important that anyone ever does.All the evidence I’m aware of suggests that Musk tweeted about the mini-sub (and other early concepts) for exactly the reason he claimed to: because it was a way of surfacing ideas that those closer to the problem could weigh and consider. As one SpaceX employee who worked on the support team told me: “We were confident in our ability to rapidly design and manufacture something — we were not overconfident in the actual design, which why we tried to get as much feedback as we could!"There are a lot of heroes in this story. What Unsworth and the divers did was beyond impressive (really, the more you read about it, the more wild it is that they pulled off Plan A with zero casualties). What the pump team did was also impressive and needful. And so on for all 10,000 or so people at the camp, who each had their own role to play. But it strikes me as a great injustice that the hatred of some for Musk extended to the minimization of the efforts of those who work for him, who had no agenda other than helping those boys any way they could.The Quadruple-DownAfter most of this piece had already been written, BuzzFeed News released a piece that included two email excerpts from Musk. In one of them, Musk went a step further in his “Unsworth is a pedo” accusations. This merits some comment.Taken together with his tweets from last week, Musk’s posture seems to be “I looked into the guy and I found some stuff; why haven’t you looked as hard as I did?” To that, I’d reiterate what I said in my original write-up: Unsworth should sue. If Musk did indeed make up all the details in his email, that will just add to his eventual penalty. But while we in the public need to assume Unsworth’s innocence, the question of Musk’s guilt is what we have courts for. Unsworth has engaged at least two premium lawyers (per the Daily Mail, he has three, and is considering suing Musk in multiple jurisdictions). May they do their work with diligence and may justice prevail.I’ll also note that it isn’t obvious to me that there’s any endgame here where Musk comes out well. Even if he has damning evidence to support his claim, I don’t think many will approve how he went about using it (though much would depend on whether he passed on whatever he had to appropriate law enforcement channels). And if he doesn’t have damning evidence, he’ll have lost credibility in a way that will be difficult to recover without sincere and sustained penance. Both are weighty, and are cause for deep reflection on his part.(As for publishing the emails despite Musk’s “off the record” header, I’m reminded of when Floyd Mayweather knocked out Victor Ortiz after a referee reset: what he did was allowable by the rules, but you couldn’t find two guys in any bar who thought it felt fair or that it reflected well on the institution of boxing. In my opinion, there were preferable ways to skin this particular cat.)Taking This HomeConsidering how much of this write-up has been dedicated to external subjects, one could be forgiven for assuming that they were my intended focus.But this isn’t ultimately about them. It’s about us.This is about us deciding what to watch, what to click, what to share, what to pay for, and when to use AdBlock. This is about us taking responsibility for our actions as consumers of the news, ensuring that we support the reporting that we really want.The best journalism is slow. Think of Errol Morris traipsing across Crimea in search of The Valley of the Shadow of Death so that he could verify one stray passage from a book about art and cannonballs, or David Foster Wallace staring into the Atlantic as he weighed the morality of lobster fairs. Hot takes, by definition, are fast. Too fast. It took me a weekend to put together my original post, and I still had to sleep on it. This sequel took seven weeks (though that’s partially owing to health issues). Most takes come out in hours.This isn’t my full-time job. I’m not making a dime off this. So why is it that many of those who are being paid are working so much faster and investing far fewer hours? Does the system they work in actually allow for the kind of pace that lends itself to thoroughness and thoughtfulness? While longform is still a thing, what percentage of articles published every day are really the product of deep work?As one journalist said in mockery of my original post, “this is the kind of article that will save journalism or something”. I assure you I have no such delusions. But I do think there are things we can do better, starting with a better division between news and entertainment/editorial.But I harbor another hope too. As I said at the beginning, there’s a nuanced story here with multiple morals. If journalism is the first draft of history, then books and Hollywood scripts are the second. When this story is retold, as it surely will be, I fear that we’ll encounter some caricature of a rich industrialist, barging in uninvited, armed with nothing but hubris and ingratitude.What if, instead, we were met with messier, deeper, far more human narratives — about how heroes can parrot untruths and still be heroes, and how men can be both sinners and saints in ways that are never quite binary?Wouldn’t that be a better watch?It’s been seven weeks, true. But my hope is that the ink on those second drafts isn’t quite dry yet.A Postscript ChallengeDespite my considerable effort, it's entirely possible that I've been wrong about any number of things in what I've said here. As there are any corrections or improvements to be made, I’m keen to hear them. To that end, I’ll happily send a Starbucks ecard to anyone who offers one (or, if they prefer, I’ll make a small gift in their name to a charity that takes online donations).If you happen to come across an example that you think I should weigh or respond to, please link to it in the comments. I’ll address all noteworthy cases using edits to the main answer. Also, if anyone has a suggestion for a neutral party to judge here, please feel encouraged to put names forward. (Note to entrepreneurs: there should really be a service for that.)List of Appendices:Improving Media Accuracy: One Simple FixZeynep Tufekci’s NYT Op-EdMini-Subs: Viability & Other Notables10 Varieties of Shoddy Tesla CoverageNote Re: My Quora Bios/CredentialsWhy I Deleted My Reddit Account