I think that reporter did good work, but isn't this like pointing to a hackathon bug fix that saves a company as engineering excellence?

The parent is seemingly saying that quality journalism would have better scrutiny to not allow the situation to get this far in the first place.

They were exposed after they raised almost a billion dollars from sales and investments, often on the basis of glowing media. The book is filled with anecdotes abt how the positive media was leveraged by Holmes and often cited by internal champions at Safeway and Walgreens to counter the skeptical voices in the room (“come on, they’re in Forbes, they can’t be a scam!”)

Most of all, this is an inditement of several SV VCs. They should know nearly as much as anyone.