Then don't report it as fact. With all blatant editorializing going on right now, simple "we've been told by company representatives that X but we have no independent verification of this" would already do. And also maybe give company the incentive to actually make their claims verifiable.
> How do you propose Casey should have challenged or verified whether the Aquila flew as well as claimed
Maybe he couldn't verify it. Then he should have told "we don't know what happened, only thing we know what biased sources told us, so that's all we have for now". Maybe less sensational but more true.
> Reporters do this work too - it's not all cloak and dagger stuff, whistleblowers and top-secret dossiers.
True. But just refusing to parrot the press release would already be a step forward - if the company knows their unverified press releases would always have asterisk next to it, they'd have an incentive to make them more verifiable. Or at least the honest ones would. And thus we'd get a way to distinguish between honest companies and cheaters.
> That's an interesting story that should be told
Sure, what should not be told is what actually didn't happen except in company's press release - and the reporter reported it as something that did happen, because they wanted to juice up the story and pretend they have more access than they actually did. As a human, I can understand that weakness, as a consumer of the press I can not forgive it.
How did Bloomberg do it? By not publishing immediately, checking other sources. Also known as journalism.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/facebook-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-27/after-goo...
They, like every other outlet, covered the news with the resources immediately available, then followed up later when information became available that led them to question the completeness of Facebook's account and details of the project.
How do you propose Casey should have challenged or verified whether the Aquila flew as well as claimed? Any data about the craft would come from FB, any paper describing it would be published by FB, any researchers who worked on it would work at FB. Anyone else who might be an "objective" source would be under NDA. Companies are very thorough about this sort of thing.
A journalist doing an investigative piece on the Aquila would not take Zuckerberg's words as gospel, but that doesn't mean those words are unimportant. This was a news piece, and CEOs speaking publicly about an R&D project, and answering questions and so on, is an opportunity to provide a different kind of value. Readers are curious about details companies don't always provide, and also require context that isn't always obvious. Reporters do this work too - it's not all cloak and dagger stuff, whistleblowers and top-secret dossiers.
Aquila was a solar-powered drone that FB wanted to use to create a laser-powered internet for developing countries. That's an interesting story that should be told - and not just by the company, which would leave out important parts like opposition to Internet.org or indeed the unfinished nature of the aircraft. That's important work for reporters as well - filling in those gaps so that readers' understanding of a topic or event is more full than it would be had only people with a stake in it done so.
I also have not seen the pattern you describe and am not sure it's as endemic as you suggest.