Social questions nytimes6/16/2023 ![]() What Chozick neglects to consider is whether such an exercise is either interesting or even justified. Fundamentally, she aspires to show us the human being behind the multibillion-dollar fraud: the new mother of two in a loving relationship who takes her young children to the zoo and goes to Burning Man the erstwhile twentysomething billionaire who doesn’t watch R-rated movies and is possessed of ordinary human foibles. Chozick was clearly going for moral nuance, but her implicitly sympathetic fascination with Holmes - manifest in both the profile’s accompanying album-art style photos and its author’s insertion of herself into the proceedings - leaves the effort remarkably short of insight. Save the exposition and endless chin-stroking that follows, this opening stanza more or less captures the essence of the piece. Holmes is preparing to go to prison for one of the most notorious cases of corporate fraud in recent history. We walk past a family of caged orangutans and talk about how Ms. Here’s how it opens:Įlizabeth Holmes blends in with the other moms here, in a bucket hat and sunglasses, her newborn strapped to her chest and swathed in a Baby Yoda nursing blanket. ![]() In sum, the whole thing is pretty bad - taking roughly five thousand words to serve readers the jejune thesis that Elizabeth Holmes, whatever her crimes and deceptions might be, is ultimately a land of contrasts. Written by author and reporter Amy Chozick, probably best known for her 2018 book Chasing Hillary - a memoir about covering Hillary Clinton in 2016 that is currently being adapted into a drama series for HBO Max - the piece offers a snapshot of Holmes as she awaits incarceration following her conviction last November. It’s all too easy to tweet a passage, paragraph, or headline out of context and use it to bludgeon a writer unfairly or harvest cheap engagement with bad-faith dunks.Īll of which is to say that I dove into the New York Times’ recent profile of disgraced Silicon Valley charlatan Elizabeth Holmes, entitled “Liz Holmes Wants You to Forget About Elizabeth,” ready to be surprised. This is especially true of long-form journalism, which at its best can communicate nuance and inform readers about the complexities of difficult or contentious subjects. Whenever a piece of writing elicits an online backlash, it’s good to keep an open mind and read it for yourself.
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