The difference is that the HN comment thread will rarely have insights that a reporter can often provide after following up with their inside contacts.

Edit: on reflection, I don’t agree with this and wrote this too hastily. I’d still prefer 3rd party by default and believe it’s often a better basis for a discussion.

My experience is the complete opposite.

Reporters rarely add much unless they've got several days to do an analysis piece, which there are very few of. And is never the case for breaking news.

HN threads regularly supply oodles of context and counterpoints you don't find in any articles anywhere. Which is one of the big reasons we come here, right?

I probably wrote that too hastily, and will give you that many threads are indeed deeply insightful by themselves.

I still believe that a 3rd party source that at least has a chance of being more objective than a company issued press release is the ideal basis on which to form a discussion.

That is very much opposed to my experience.