Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

vanityfair.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 91 posts

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#61

Post by chrischen »

w1ntermute wrote: post #20
Animats wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wrote about UBeam here.[1] It's come up several times on YC, and most readers are skeptical. The megahertz ultrasound part can't work in air; attenuation goes up rapidly with frequency, which is why megahertz ultrasound isn't used much. Their patents talk about 75 KHz, which propagates OK in air. But the sound levels they talk about are insane. Their numbers imply a few kilowatts of power going in. You do not want…

There's a whole lot of people who want there to be a successful female entrepreneur so badly that they're willing to give a rising star the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't help that most members of this cheerleading squad seem to have little more than a middle school level understanding of physics or biology, and no desire to dive into the science before heaping praise on the charlatan of the hour.

The problem with this indiscriminate propping up of women is that it doesn't work, or else we'd be doing this for everyone. But we live in a mostly meritocratic society because that system is better than indiscriminate merit.

So while they indiscriminately endorse any women, the women who merit endorsement more will inevitably be disenfranchised more.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#62

Post by hkmurakami »

pessimizer wrote: post #60

I don't think that the press can be blamed for the Theranos meltdown. All that's happened is that a bunch of investors are about to lose a bunch of money, and Walgreens got screwed. The investors and the guy at Walgreens were all people from Holmes' class (and people with personal connections to her and her family.) The tech press are also from that same class (or worshippers of that same class), and so they followed…

The public is nominally screwed through their pension funds investing in VC funds investing in Theranos, fwiw.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#63

Post by bigtones »

minimaxir wrote: post #6

It's worth noting that The New York Times, where Nick Bilton worked previously, did not write any articles about Theranos/Holmes. (I checked) The discussion about the suspiciously positive press strongly resembles uBeam ( http://techcrunch.com/2015/04/26/kill-the-cord/ ): the wunderkind founder, the game changing product. But no practical proof of concept and a weak defense when others point out it violates the laws…

The New York Times have referenced Theranos and Holmes in three separate articles discussing the company - you're not looking hard enough.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#64

Post by aussieindian »

redsummer wrote: post #34
spaceflunky wrote: post #2

The media is 100% to blame here... I think in large part because of how they treat female entrepreneurs, with well-meaning, but harmful attitudes. IMO we live in a world where there are too few successful female entrepreneurs and at the same time people are very eager to see that world change. So as a result, if there is any inkling of a successful female entrepreneur, that story gets gobbled up by the press ad nause…

The culture is 'to blame' if anything. The butt-kicking female entrepreneur / superhero is a standard trope now in Hollywood and TV. Being a young women, especially a blonde one, is catnip in "celebrity business". It's 'empowering'. It sells papers. It's also bullshit, but to think such a thing is a thought crime. The funniest thing is all these 90 year old crinkly men being conned into investing. What could they pos…

Another instructive story comes from down under

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belle_Gibson

She was paraded as a brave and celebrated App developer who overcame serious health issues by the Australian press.

and then it came crashing down.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#65

Post by w1ntermute »

duaneb wrote: post #54
w1ntermute wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly.

I still don't see the tie to sex/gender. Yes, it's a compelling angle, but I don't see it dominating the offering as interesting. Theranos has been pitched as revolutionary without even mentioning the founder--I only learned about her long after the skepticism hit hard.

> Theranos has been pitched as revolutionary without even mentioning the founder

That is false. Almost every profile of Theranos doubles as a profile of Elizabeth, complete with photo shoots of her in her signature black turtleneck (after all, there is no actual technology to be shown) and the statement that she's the youngest self-made female billionaire.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#66

Post by chucksmash »

vemy wrote: post #39
ghaff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't use J-School grads as a particular proxy for anything. I've known J-School grads who worked for various IT publications (though not for less conventional pubs like Techcrunch). But then I know a number of WSJ reporters and op-ed (as well as at least one person who moved from IT trades to general business) who don;t have J-School degrees. There are a lot of ways to learn standard journalistic practice witho…

Juts like CS schools, I think the quality could be dependent on the specific school they graduated from.

Is it though? I've never run across an MIT grad so maybe the uniformly kickass grammers are hiding further up the curve, but there have certainly been grads of top 10 schools who I naively deferred to (as a junior, self-taught programmer) only to later regret that deference.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#67

Post by gozur88 »

duaneb wrote: post #54
w1ntermute wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, exactly.

I still don't see the tie to sex/gender. Yes, it's a compelling angle, but I don't see it dominating the offering as interesting. Theranos has been pitched as revolutionary without even mentioning the founder--I only learned about her long after the skepticism hit hard.

The attractive, charismatic female founder is what makes the story irresistible to the press. There still would have been Theranos stories in the business press if the founder had been a middle-aged guy, but the number of stories would have been smaller and the adulation would have been less.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#68

Post by dublinben »

secfirstmd wrote: post #24
sigmar wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the first thing that came to mind when I read this headline. The BBC article this morning on Craig Wright was embarrassing.

The BBC's news coverage has gone down hill rapidly over the past few years unfortunately.

Their technology coverage has always been shockingly bad.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#69

Post by ghaff »

vemy wrote: post #39
ghaff wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't use J-School grads as a particular proxy for anything. I've known J-School grads who worked for various IT publications (though not for less conventional pubs like Techcrunch). But then I know a number of WSJ reporters and op-ed (as well as at least one person who moved from IT trades to general business) who don;t have J-School degrees. There are a lot of ways to learn standard journalistic practice witho…

Juts like CS schools, I think the quality could be dependent on the specific school they graduated from.

This is a bit different. There are some accomplished programmers, software architects, etc. who don't have CS degrees, I think it's fair to say that they are in the distinct minority. On the other hand, I suspect that, among the top tier of journalists (admittedly difficult to measure), the majority--perhaps the great majority--do not have J-School degrees. There are better (e.g. Columbia) and worse journalism schools, for sure. But it's not the sort of prerequisite that other professional degrees can be.

Re: The Secret Culprit in the Theranos Mess Is the Tech Press

#70

Post by wpietri »

c5karl wrote: post #31
mathattack wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Newspapers struggle to pay the bills, though. If it looks like a lawsuit will cost a lot of money, many papers will just walk. It also increases the cost of fact checking the story.

> If it looks like a lawsuit will cost a lot of money, many papers will just walk. What is this assertion based on? News organizations large and small carry insurance to protect them from lawsuits like this. Will the general counsel grill the newsroom leadership to make sure they can back up what's being printed and that they're not violating the law? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean they will be cowed by threats of…

I'm also skeptical. The journalists I know would love a fight like this. The marketing advantage to the paper could be huge. And the US legal protections for newspapers are so strong that suits like this are very, very hard to win.

And that's just the general case. The WSJ isn't an ordinary paper; they can charge $400 a year because their readers believe they can get a business advantage. The moment readers think that anybody with a few lawyers can get a negative story killed is the moment they stop relying on the paper.

And if somebody did end up taking them to the mat, they're owned by Rupert Murdoch, a famously combative media boss and son of a reporter whose net worth is north of $12 billion. The guy started Fox News, which might as well be called the Angry Shouty Channel. I cannot think of a worse person in the world to attempt to intimidate with a lawsuit.

Post reply on HN