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 Murdoch for years explained it, “He’s a newsman — and a good story is a good story no matter what or who the story is about.”

[1] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/05/john-carreyrous...

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 before Holmes was set to appear at a major WSJ business conference.

Carreyrou wrote a book. This story was going to get out anyway.

Murdoch is a very skilled propagandist. He knew that trying to suppress this story would have backfired on him. Especially because the machines don’t work and because Walgreens would have soon learned the truth.

Nothing hurts a propagandist more than being really caught in an obvious lie. To protect his ability to slant the WSJ, Murdoch couldn’t have gotten caught suppressing this story. And he would have gotten caught if he tried.

Again, I'm not giving Murdoch any credit, but simply pointing out that Theranos clearly did not control News Corp.

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

Not publishing the story wouldn't have saved Murdoch's $125m. The story just reflected the truth of the matter, which was that the company had nothing and never did.

Speculating that he might have lost less than $125 million by publishing the story. How much of the investment was recovered or it's that still TBD?

Once the fraud was exposed and the company began winding down, spending would quickly slow down and that might have put investors in a better position to recover something, versus loosing everything.

If you don't give him credit for that, what would you give him credit for? If he stopped Carreyrou, you'd obviously blame him. Therefore in order for your judgement to be meaningful, you have to admit that him allowing Carreyrou to go ahead and topple the house of cards was a good action. Otherwise no matter what he does you judge him negatively - and in that case, your decision is predetermined and not of informational value for anyone.

Refraining from being horrible is not the same thing as doing something good.

No, but refraining from taking an action that's well within your power to take, possibly with minimal consequences, and which you have a strong incentive to take, is sign of integrity. I don't know if that's "getting credit", but having integrity is clearly a good thing.

On the other hand, it could simply be shrewd businessmanship. It's not like it was the reporting that made Theranos unviable. The tech would never work, it's just a question of time before the walls come crashing down. It's probably illegal for Murdoch to sit on this information while trying to sell his investment on to someone else (at the very least, inviting some nasty lawsuits).

Murdoch might very well have thought "Oh well, the investment is gone, I'll be damned if it isn't my newspaper to be the one to break this juicy news".

Murdoch had a short term incentive but a very large long term disincentive. If he tried to suppress this story he would have gotten caught because FDA and Walgreens care about facts. Not to mention that the story itself would drive readership.

Looks to me that Murdoch acted exactly according to his long term goals.

Look at all the people I have not murdered today. Yes yesterday was a bit of a bad day with that school and everything but I should get some credit for today.

It's almost like the nice guy thing. My times I respected women stamp card is almost full!

You don't give people credit for what should be normal. You give them credit for doing something over and beyond normal.

.... Uh. Yeah. That's why the poster did give him credit.

Since when has ethics ever stopped Rupert Murdoch?

Would controlling the media to influence an investment you hold stock in be considered illegal? Similar to insider trading?

I believe so: consider the City Slickers case[0].

Those guys were journos, not proprietors, but I'm pretty sure that if you could prove that a proprietor put heavy manners on the journos to do that, they would certainly be up for a criminal conspiracy charge, at least in Britain. Of course, that is typically a pretty big 'if'.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hipwell

Unless you’re in the US Congress, where profiting from stock movements was made explicitly legal - by an act of Congress.

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.

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.

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.

Exactly. His long term incentives were aligned with letting the story run.

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.)

I don't consider my explanation to be a negative one. He didn't spike the story because he's not stupid.

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