By Alec Hogg
If you haven’t watched Elon Musk’s hour-long interview with the BBC, please do (click here). The spontaneous discourse is a study of boy from Pretoria’s authenticity.
Musk answered an often belligerent interviewer directly, and he enjoyed the sparring – as would a superior boxer efficiently dealing with wild roundhouses of an outclassed opponent. It helped Musk, too, that the exchange was watched live on Twitter Spaces by 680 000 people. Raw and live footage keeps everyone honest.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___The part which resonated most with me was Musk’s comments about my trade. Shaped by his experience, he shared how reporters invariably get a lot wrong in areas he knows about. That’s rational. Most reporters cover such a broad subject range they never become true experts. Sadly, ego prevents many from absorbing this.
A similar view has shaped my approach over the years. For example, back in1997, newly created Moneyweb was the first SA media platform in SA with unmoderated reader comments under articles. This was deliberately done to encourage readers to point out errors. Our journos hated it at first, but soon grew to appreciate that it helped them improve.
At BizNews, we’ve taken the principle further by publishing unedited interviews. This makes misreporting impossible as the content consumer is getting it directly from the source.
Many powerful legacy media voices have criticised Elon’s belief in this principle of applying equity at his $44bn acquisition, the world’s largest news platform. Perhaps it reminds them too sharply of how their world has changed. But for me, Twitter has been the best custodian ever.
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