Maybe I'm being too nice, but I'm willing to give the NYT a little benefit of the doubt that this might just have been a single journalist embellishing a story for publicity, as has been known to happen both there and at so many other publications many times over.
I came to the US in 1999, and understood the NYT to be the "newspaper of record". Then witnessed their atrocious coverage of WMDs and the drumbeat to the Iraq invasion. There was Jayson Blair. There was Rick Bragg. Just off the top of my head. They're always "isolated incidents" ...until it becomes a pattern of behavior. Just my 2c YMMV
Americans can see the same effect just from being out of the country for a while. A few years, months, or weeks of not being subjected to the psychological burden of following 'the news' and its gradual narrative, whether that's NYT or otherwise, can have quite effective results on how ably you judge things in the future.
If I didn't live next to a journalist, I'd say it was a single journalist. But job of journalist is not to discuss the truth, inform the public, but to garner eyeballs.
This wasn't "embellishment" - no reasonable person can look at those charging logs and not believe that this "reporter" deliberately set out to discharge a battery and then write a story about it.
I do blame Tesla, somewhat, for not having the good sense to realize that this guy was going to do a hatchet job. Perhaps they'll learn from this and deal with actual journalists in the future.
You do understand that NYT made previously a statement for unconditionally supporting their journalist, although Tesla promised contradicting evidences?
