"CEO said a thing!" journalism involves parroting the claims of a business leader or executive with absolutely no context, correction, or challenge whatsoever, no matter how elaborate the delusion.

Telling everyone Elon was a fraud for years was a painful time. Because people would just believe his endless claims that never turned out to be true. I could list a dozen major lies of his and they would just say "Just wait bro! He will save us all!". Ugh.

Then again it was still not as painful as today. Journalism is largely really really bad and that's in part to the fact most of it is owned by the obscene rich.