I don't read about X very often so I was just surprised to see stats that I assumed would be internal to the company stated as fact. It was an honest question.

It would be cool if news articles had citations linking to previous reporting but I realize that's expecting too much.

Probably a little of both, tbh. The first statement seems to be a fairly extraordinary claim to present without evidence.

TBH, I don't need a citation for every fact, but I'd like a little more for things where they cannot be directly observed.

And I'd like a lot less news laundering, but that's a whole different subject at this point.