WSJ’s Carreyrou to receive Freedom of the Press Award

John Carreyrou

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press will honor Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou with a Freedom of the Press Award for his reporting on the Theranos scandal.

Amelia Nitz and Jenn Topper of the Committee write, “‘There were untold numbers of patients who could’ve been dealing with faulty blood tests that could’ve had significant implications for their health,’ said Michael Siconolfi, the senior editor at The Wall Street Journal who worked with Carreyrou on the Theranos stories. ‘It’s impossible to know how many lives he protected because of his reporting.’

“While Carreyrou reported on Theranos, several of his sources became the targets of a heavy-handed intimidation campaign aimed at silencing them. Theranos’s lawyers also used threats of litigation against Carreyrou and The Wall Street Journal in attempts to have the story killed. But Carreyrou pressed on.

“‘The company was very aggressive in trying to dissuade him from the story,’ said Stefanie Ilgenfritz, the health and science bureau chief for The Wall Street Journal. ‘They hired lawyers who were very aggressive in trying to dissuade him, in trying to dissuade The Wall Street Journal, and in trying to dissuade his sources from speaking to us.'”

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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.