Elon Musk, billionaire founder of Skype, wants to revolutionize the landscape of American cars with his Tesla Motors Model S sedan. He's already got a contract with Toyota, and he's been lauded by every outlet that knows what the hell it's talking about. So why does ABC News want to smear Tesla as the next Solyndra?
"The cringe-worthy fail [begins] in the intro, which sets the segment’s tone and frames the subsequent reporting," writes Mike Orcutt in The New Fuelist.
Host Terry Morgan leads with this:
Two and a half years ago President Obama pushed a $787 billion stimulus bill through Congress that he said would create millions of jobs, but now the president’s under attack by critics who say that stimulus hasn’t created a significant number of jobs and costs too much. Tonight ABC’s Brian Ross looks at two companies that received a billion in government loans and asks, what did they do with it?
Except, oops, those loans weren't part of the stimulus package. As Jocelyn Fong writes at Media Matters:
The Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Loan Program was established by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which received broad bipartisan support. President Bush and Congress determined that investing in energy-efficient vehicles was worth risking $7.5 billion, which is how much they gave the program to cover the cost of any defaults or delinquencies.
Apparently fact-checkers are not on the payroll at ABC News — just hacks who craft hatchet jobs on some of the few growing industries this country has left.
