Just a quick follow-up, I was recently in Phoenix at the RAV4 drive and was asked by a lot of people about this story including Tommy from TFL. We had a long chat about it actually from an editor's perspective on whether or not to cover the news.
From my perspective, I had covered the UAW strike, tariffs, diesel emissions, CAFE rules changes, etc... I felt that if I ignored this story what would it say about how I choose my coverage? I'm biased because maybe people don't think I like the guy (never met him so that's pretty unfair to say) or I'm afraid to report on it because he has 40 times the amount of followers than I do? Nah. This was news and I thought it was of interest to truck fans especially in light of the recent emissions news from the EPA. It met all the news criteria I was taught in college.
"Key elements that make a story newsworthy include timeliness, proximity (local relevance), prominence (involving well-known people), consequence (impact on many people), conflict, and oddity or human interest."
I realize I probably alienated some viewers (probably could have done things differently from the start), but from my perspective, I can tell you, I gained a lot more viewers and this story was the talk at every table I sat at every night. And I could sleep at night knowing we did a solid job at the end with this work referenced above. People were really engaged and talking about the story, not my coverage of it. It was a hit amongst the journalists there and it stood out to many of them as the story of the month they read or watched the video on. Far more interesting in their view than any review or other thing they had seen recently.
