Correct me if I am wrong, but this is what it seems like you are implying: It's okay for someone of his stature (from the NYT) to take "shoddy notes and [rely] on human memory", since he wasn't told that "the data was on".
No, there are many problems with it. For example, how do we even know the data is right? If the people Broder called gave him bad advice, maybe it's because something was inaccurate? Maybe the data isn't quite right. If Broder had known this whole thing was going to be recorded he could have brought his own recorder to protect himself from an overly aggressive company lying about his experience.
Shoddy data collecting/telemetry? Seriously? Is that what you're suggesting? Because SpaceX (another Musk company) has rockets that dock with the space station.
Definitely not worshiping Musk here, but if you can get a rocket to dock with the ISS, I'm pretty sure you can collect charge state, speed, and cabin environment control settings pretty accurately.
This is very much Musk worship. You really think they use the exact same software at Tesla as they use for SpaceX? Is there any reasons at all to believe the programmers from these two companies have ever even met each other? Or share code via some kind of cross-company repository?
Since Musk drives product development at both companies and owns both of them, yes, I'm confident engineers collaborate between the two companies. It would be stupidity not to.