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We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

nautil.us

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Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#91

Post by [deleted] »

kumarvvr wrote: post #63
sohkamyung wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But some credit is due to Rupert Murdoch: despite pressure from Elizabeth Holmes (and his investment in it), he decided to allow the reporter, John Carreyrou, to publish his critical pieces on Theranos in the WSJ [1]: Several people who have worked at Murdoch papers have told me that he isn’t above interceding in editorial matters, but in this case, despite his personal interest, he didn’t. A source who has known Mur…

For a man like Murdoch, allowing Carreyrou seems to be more in the vein of "Let there be a public naysayer, lets discredit him, leading to more pseudo-credibility to my investment" I seriously doubt he allowed Carreyrou to continue for the sake of good journalism.

[deleted]

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#92

Post by laughinghan »

WalterBright wrote: post #87
kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

> how important it is that we come up with a framework to penalize misleading journalism That would require the existence of a group of people empowered decide what is the truth and what is not. Such groups have a really, really bad history. No thanks. (The history of it is so bad that protection from such groups is enshrined in the Bill of Rights.)

Woah, I think you’re reading too much into what GP is suggesting. I think all that GP is pointing out is that news sources that reported on Theranos’ claims credulously and without necessary skepticism have faced basically no criticism (this article doesn’t even bring it up), and therefore have virtually no disincentive from doing the exact same thing with the next Theranos.

Fixing that doesn’t necessarily require an oppressive Orwellian governmental body to dictate truth and punish journalists who veer from the party line. It could be as simple as, after the fact now that we know how fraudulent it was, naming prominent journalists and outlets and pointing out red flags that they should have but failed to highlight, and other similar ways they should have expressed a healthy skepticism but didn’t.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#93

Post by Fomite »

busterarm wrote: post #56
cepth wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough! The book is worth the read. I think I may be being a bit unfair to the scientists. Basically, Theranos was a hot enough startup that Elizabeth Holmes and Sunny Balwani would fire, demote, or marginalize anyone who made a fuss. Lifelong academics may have never had to deal with that kind of bullying/pressure before. On the other hand, they had some pretty incredible scientific talent on staff. You would t…

Are we sure about this? My impression of this lately is that to be a lifelong academic is to constantly put up with bullying and pressure. Such is the nature of competing in a status-economy.

There are definitely some labs I know people who have worked in that would give the most abusive startup a run for their money.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#94

Post by tankerslay »

lomnakkus wrote: post #88
lhorie wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> come up with a framework to penalize misleading journalism, while at the same time, preserving the independence of media Why this obsession with penalizing people? Journalists might not know better. At some point one needs to take some responsibility in determining whether what they are consuming are actually reputable data sources or just cheap/free entertainment and hearsay, and one needs to realize that news out…

> Journalists might not know better. I don't understand why this would excuse anything. Journalism is almost literally their about to (get to) know better about things and explaining to the rest of us. At least, that's what it should be -- these days it seems to be mostly about generating clickbait. (Sorry if that's cynical -- I've just read Trust Me, I'm Lying.) > Ultimately, shouldn't everyone be applying critical…

>these days it seems to be mostly about generating clickbait.

Yes it's a bastardization of their profession, but everyone needs to eat.

Who knows if we'll ever get back to the quality of journalism in the Woodward/Bernstein era, when the large majority of middle-class Americans paid a monthly subscription to have professionally composed news delivered to their doorstep every morning.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#95

Post by wodenokoto »

mplewis wrote: post #84
kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

Here's a story about media manipulation from a reporter who Theranos tried to sell on the story: https://khn.org/news/reporters-notebook-the-tale-of-theranos... I don't want to go full Elon "the media is incentivized to penalize me in particular" Musk, but the ethical thing this reporter did was to was cancel the Theranos feature. A less scrupulous reporter might have been happy to run with it.

If they can prick a reporter, why not prick a patient and have them come back for a later follow-up where they do the real test. That way the reporter and theranos both get their soundbite.

I mean, it's not worse than setting off a fire alarm and cancel every body's blood test.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#96

Post by [deleted] »

kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

[deleted]

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#97

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

keyle wrote: post #12
aphextron wrote: post #4

Those stupid scooters and e-bikes will be the Aeron chair of this cycle.

I'm still shopping for a good Aeron chair... I had one years ago and it was the best thing I've every put my tooshie on. Joke aside, a damn fine office chair.

Odd, I felt they are kinda heavy, too low to the ground, have an overcomplicated set of levers, and not super comfortable.

I prefer a $50 chair from office depot...

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#98

Post by starpilot »

kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

> The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning.

Links? Wasn't Holmes incredibly secretive about everything? It's not like she was promising overunity or anything, just a "radically new approach" type thing.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#99

Post by donbright »

kumarvvr wrote: post #26

The most amazing thing about this whole situation is that there were experts in the field who were shouting out about the impossibility of Holmes' claims right from the beginning. The media, though, never paid enough attention (or was possibly subverted by Theranos itself) to the naysayers. These incidents ought to remind us the exponentially important role media plays in our lives and how important it is that we com…

The Wall Street Journal is the only reason the company was outed.

This same journal was also one of her early boosters.

We already have a framework that preserves independence of the media, the First Amendment. All of the NDAs and Boies style intimidation and legal abuse and harrasment of the whistleblowers and journalists was only stopped by the First Amendment.

We already have a framework that punishes journalists - it's people like Peter Thiel suing them out of existence because he doesn't like what they say. It's big funders buying a newspaper and destroying it like the Denver Post. It's the government putting sources on trial and in prison like happened with the NSA stories. Journalists are murdered constantly for reporting stories. And the industry itself is dying because of changing business models. They dont need a framework to punish them any more.

Re: We Shouldn’t Be Surprised at the Theranos Fraud

#100

Post by jlj »

tptacek wrote: post #83
cowpig wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He gets credit for not doing something extremely unethical that would have been quite risky, probably stupidly so (because it would bring him into the controversy)?

I don't know if he gets credit for it (I'm disinclined to give him credit for anything, ever), but since a reporter in his employ came pretty close to singlehandedly ruining that investment, he makes a really bad example of how Theranos investors subverted the media. As Carreyrou reports, Theranos definitely tried to pull strings with Murdoch, and apparently got nowhere with it. The WSJ timed the story to hit right b…

Were his losses insured or recovered somehow after the collapse? Or was the investor money all gone by then?
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