How is it always WSJ busting Theranos? is a competitor funding their "investigative journalism"? Not to say the article is untrue, just the super hard-on WSJ has for Theranos is mysterious.
An investigative reporter at WSJ was the first to break the story about issues at Theranos, and he and other reporters have been assigned to keep investigating and keep reporting on it. I think this is pretty standard investigative reporting, similar to how it was always the Washington Post breaking news on Watergate.
Here's how it works: Whoever writes the landmark news-breaking story on a given scandal is the main person that people with axes to grind will go to with more information. Positive feedback cycle.
Let's take a step back. How many news organizations are well-known for investigative journalism? I'd say the number is relatively small, so you're already working with a small set. Journalism is also a function of the individual editors and journalists who are actually doing the work. What interests them? What are they good at? Looking at the situation from just these, it's not all that surprising that a single news organization tends to be responsible for a majority—if not all—of the investigations with respect to a particular topic without the necessity of competition funding.
There are honest reasons why a news outlet might take a strong interest in a group of stories.
A journalist might have become interested in a story early, and his immediate collegues then followed once it started picking up steam, for example. It's a bit like why a university might develop expertise in a new field faster than others.
It's possible that that initial interest came from outside influence of a competitor, but it's also reasonable to suspect that it was an honest skepticism from a journalist. After all, it's not hard to be skeptical of the many startups popping up these days.
A better question is why do other most of the other media firms (including all of the valley tech shops) believe reprinting press releases is journalism?
I basically agree with you, but I will state that I was not attacking any journalists.
Sensationalism sells. There are both good and bad reasons behind that truism. At the moment, the publishing industry is in crisis. I see no reason to look any further than a dire need to increase sales as "motive" for a particular publication apparently revisiting this particular on-going drama repeatedly.
My sister was a journalism major in college. She was significantly involved in the school paper in high school and was awarded a journalism scholarship that helped pay for her college education. She went on to do other things and is not a journalist, though an early job of hers did involve working on a publication. I also had a class in journalism in high school (where I was disliked by the teacher for failing to be enough like my older sister, whom he had adored as a student and contributor to the school paper) and I was State Alternate for the Governor's Honors Program in Georgia in the subject of Journalism when I was 15. So, I got my toes ever so slightly wet in journalism in my teens, then, I also went down some other path instead of becoming a journalist.
I assure you, my remarks are in no way intended to be an attack on journalists.