4 ms·

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-credibili

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 8y ago
[deleted]
kijin 8y ago
A man like Murdoch cares whether a company he invested in is going to make him money. This means finding out how the company is actually doing, instead of simply trusting the documents presented to him. What better way to do this than to have a reporter snoop around? By letting reporters in his hire just do their jobs, Murdoch probably gets privileged access to a great deal of secrets and speculations. Carreyrou's reporting could very well have persuaded Murdoch not to make further investments in Theranos, thereby saving him billions.
- auntienomen 8y ago
  Also, Murdoch has a $5B investment in the WSJ. The value of that investment depends on the credibility of their business reporting. Spiking stories to protect a much smaller investment doesn't make a lot of sense.
  - mhneu 8y ago
    Exactly. His long term incentives were aligned with letting the story run.
    - jerf 8y ago
      So, as I write this, there are what, 5 distinct possible negative motives for Murdoch? As the rationalists say, if you can explain anything, you can explain nothing. I'm not saying he did it for good reasons. I'm saying it's plain that nobody here knows why he did it, and lack of knowledge is lack of knowledge, not license to just fill in the blanks with whatever you like. (Our brains are very good at that, and the careful person must be in a constant fight against that tendency.) But jerf, I already know he's a bad person. You are justified in using past history to do a certain amount of broad concluding (nothing as specific as the 5+ hypotheses given), yes, but bear in mind you are not justified in "A: Murdoch is bad B: Here's a thing he did C: I bet he did B for a bad reason because A therefore D: Murdoch is even worse than I thought". You are "spending" confidence when you do this, not increasing it. (Another very common cognitive error. Not sure I've seen this on any fallacy lists. Probably needs to be, and given a name.)
      - auntienomen 8y ago
        I don't consider my explanation to be a negative one. He didn't spike the story because he's not stupid.
pdpi 8y ago
The alternative view is that Murdoch wrote off the investment and allowing Carreyrou the piece serves as a “this is what happens if you play games with me” warning for other prospective partners

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

kijin 8y ago

A man like Murdoch cares whether a company he invested in is going to make him money. This means finding out how the company is actually doing, instead of simply trusting the documents presented to him. What better way to do this than to have a reporter snoop around? By letting reporters in his hire just do their jobs, Murdoch probably gets privileged access to a great deal of secrets and speculations. Carreyrou's reporting could very well have persuaded Murdoch not to make further investments in Theranos, thereby saving him billions.

auntienomen 8y ago
Also, Murdoch has a $5B investment in the WSJ. The value of that investment depends on the credibility of their business reporting. Spiking stories to protect a much smaller investment doesn't make a lot of sense.
- mhneu 8y ago
  Exactly. His long term incentives were aligned with letting the story run.
  - jerf 8y ago
    So, as I write this, there are what, 5 distinct possible negative motives for Murdoch? As the rationalists say, if you can explain anything, you can explain nothing. I'm not saying he did it for good reasons. I'm saying it's plain that nobody here knows why he did it, and lack of knowledge is lack of knowledge, not license to just fill in the blanks with whatever you like. (Our brains are very good at that, and the careful person must be in a constant fight against that tendency.) But jerf, I already know he's a bad person. You are justified in using past history to do a certain amount of broad concluding (nothing as specific as the 5+ hypotheses given), yes, but bear in mind you are not justified in "A: Murdoch is bad B: Here's a thing he did C: I bet he did B for a bad reason because A therefore D: Murdoch is even worse than I thought". You are "spending" confidence when you do this, not increasing it. (Another very common cognitive error. Not sure I've seen this on any fallacy lists. Probably needs to be, and given a name.)
    - auntienomen 8y ago
      I don't consider my explanation to be a negative one. He didn't spike the story because he's not stupid.

pdpi 8y ago

The alternative view is that Murdoch wrote off the investment and allowing Carreyrou the piece serves as a “this is what happens if you play games with me” warning for other prospective partners