willReveal

Hi there, you should read the story to find out! The company's rate of serious injuries -- those requiring days away from work or job restrictions -- was 83% higher than the industry average in 2016, but came down to 30% higher than average in 2017. The company says its overall injury rate is right at industry average - but we found that the company is not counting all its injuries as required by law, so that would make its record look better than it actually is. Also, state regulators have cited Tesla more than 40 times for health and safety violations since 2013. I hope that helps - but much more detail in the story!

Hi there, we did this reporting completely independently of the union. We interviewed more than 3 dozen current and former employees, and some of them have supported the union but many were not involved at all - including the former Tesla safety professionals we talked to. So that accusation is just wrong.

This is an important issue for reporters. It's important to figure out everything you can about your sources, including whether they have an axe to grind, whether they are considered trustworthy by others, and whether there are documents that back up their story. We definitely weed out people who don't check out. In this story, it was important to us to find multiple sources who independently brought up the same concerns (in this story, 5 former members of the environmental, health and safety team), and to find documents to back up what they were saying (which we did).

I responded the money question below. I'm not sure what you mean by their more-current information. They said we used old information but the injuries and conditions were were talking about were from 2017 -- and the former health safety professionals who talked to us were from 2017 as well.

As a journalist, you often don't start as an expert in the subject you are covering. You immerse yourself in the story, do a lot of reading and reporting, talk to as many people as you can, and rely on experts to help you understand what is important and what to look for. Then you go back to those experts to make sure what you're publishing is accurate and solid.