Holmes: I “mishandled” process of WSJ reporting on Theranos

Elizabeth Holmes

Former Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes testified Tuesday that she “mishandled” the process of how the company responded to Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou, reports Heather Somerville of The Journal.

Somerville writes, “The messages show Ms. Holmes and Mr. Balwani discussing intervening with Mr. Carreyrou’s blood test at a Theranos testing center, which was part of his reporting. In one exchange, they made fun of Mr. Carreyrou’s French heritage—his father is French— and another showed them surmising who Mr. Carreyrou’s sources were.

“Mr. Leach asked Ms. Holmes about her plan to ‘get ahead of’ the Journal story. She responded that she didn’t know what he meant.

“‘We were certainly actively engaged with Mr. Carreyrou,’ Ms. Holmes testified. ‘We were very worried about Mr. Carreyrou’s story.’ She said her worry was that the story would disclose Theranos’s trade secrets.

“Ms. Holmes declined Mr. Carreyrou’s requests for an interview for five months before his initial article in October 2015.”

Read more here.

Chris Roush

Chris Roush was the dean of the School of Communications at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Connecticut. He was previously Walter E. Hussman Sr. Distinguished Professor in business journalism at UNC-Chapel Hill. He is a former business journalist for Bloomberg News, Businessweek, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Tampa Tribune and the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He is the author of the leading business reporting textbook "Show me the Money: Writing Business and Economics Stories for Mass Communication" and "Thinking Things Over," a biography of former Wall Street Journal editor Vermont Royster.