The New York Times published a long-form interview with Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes on Tuesday. The Times reporter, Amy Chozick, provides a sympathetic ear to the convicted fraudster, giving her a chance to introduce the world to her kinder, relatable alter ego, “Liz”. However, in all likelihood, the interview is an orchestrated attempt to rehabilitate a villain.
Last year, Holmes was convicted on four counts of defrauding investors. The jury found that she lied about her blood-testing startup Theranos, saying it was reliably functional when she knew it wasn’t. She was set to begin her 11 year sentence last month, but filed an eleventh hour appeal that bought her some additional time at home with her husband and two new babies. The delay allowed her time to host Chozick for several days at her Southern California home and launch a charm offensive in an attempt to rehabilitate her notoriously negative public image. (RELATED: Elizabeth Holmes Sentenced To Over 11 Years In Prison)
Chozick appears to have at least somewhat fallen under Holmes’ spell. When asked what the “most surprising” part of spending so much time with Holmes was, Chozick responded, “it’s that I didn’t expect her to be so . . . normal?”
The piece rambles on for around 5,000 words in which Chozick continually discusses the mundanities of Holmes’ everyday routine as a wife and mother. She talks about breastfeeding over breakfast, walking the dog, and ordering in delivery to their “quaint” rental home. Yet she still described the couple with an air of romanticism, likening their “us-against-the-world ethos” to Bonnie and Clyde. “I was admittedly swept up in Liz as an authentic and sympathetic person,” Chozick concedes.
Notably, the piece discusses Holmes’ feminist bonafides at length. On the one hand, Chozick discusses the need for “Elizabeth” to put on the persona she did in order to be taken seriously as a young female CEO. On the other hand, she repeatedly mentions how the new “Liz” now volunteers for a rape-crisis hotline several times a week. She then “put this work into context,” describing Holmes’ own alleged sexual assault at a fraternity party, which contributed to her decision to drop out of college and found Theranos.
This all builds into a rote feminist victim narrative, in which a naive young girl was pressured by her older (romantic and business) partner into suppressing her authentic self. Ramesh Balwani, almost 20 years her senior and former President of Theranos, “kept close control over her every action” and told her she needed to “kill Elizabeth” to become a successful businesswoman. While this served as a major part of her defense strategy in trial, Chozick gives her the opportunity to launder it sympathetically into the public consciousness. (RELATED: Former Executive At Theranos Receives Harsher Prison Sentence Than Elizabeth Holmes)
Despite playing to feminist tropes, even the Times’ reliable left-wing allies were critical of the interview. For example, the Guardian lamented how the average incarcerated mother does not receive the “splashy redemption photoshoot” that the Times gave Holmes. Others had a predictably racial assestment:
Nice to be a pretty white lady working your charm on a nyt reporter. https://t.co/BTPukyMt9A
— Soledad O’Brien (@soledadobrien) May 7, 2023
In all likelihood however, pop culture and other media outlets will increasingly echo the country’s most prestigious left-wing outlet’s narrative on the “new” Holmes.
What this story really shows is that elites will defend their own. Chozick covers the bare minimum of the very real harm that Holmes caused to add context to the story, but does not actually raise any difficult questions that put the felon’s feet to the flames. In all likelihood, this was by design.
It is unlikely that Chozick just happened to be assigned to cover Holmes (the first reporter to do so since 2016) or that she just happened to find her convincing. It is much more likely that the entire process was orchestrated behind the scenes, with a narrative constructed well in advance.
In one likely scenario, Holmes—despite crying poverty throughout the interview—could have hired a high priced public relations firm that pitched the story to Chozick, who, seeing the opportunity for a high profile interview, jumped on it on any terms. Perhaps the firm knew Chozick would lend a sympathetic ear, or perhaps she had a pre-existing relationship with the firm and owed it a favor for a prior scoop. It’s even possible they all went to college together.
The behind the scenes details of how this gushing interview came to fruition may never be known, but one thing is clear. In this elite corporate world, nothing happens by coincidence. Everyone is connected, but only money talks.
If you are wealthy, connected, and conform to the progressive cultural fads of the day, the corporate media is always willing to hear you out.