Elon’s Endgame, Nike vs NFTs, Biggest Grammys Losers
Welcome back to The Daily Courant, your afternoon guide to what's new at Puck.
Today, we direct your attention to Eriq Gardner's insightful reporting on how the infamous “shitty media men” defamation case could turn on a particularly controversial application of Section 230 immunity—the same law that protects the likes of Twitter and Facebook. Could Elliott v. Donegan potentially weaken Silicon Valley's favorite legal shield? (Plus: Could Nike annihilate the NFT market?)
Then, below the fold, Tina Nguyen checks in on the increasingly surreal McCormick-Oz grudge match. William D. Cohan joins Peter Hamby on the latest episode of The Powers That Be to explain why Elon Musk just spent 1 percent of his net worth, or nearly $3 billion, to become Twitter's largest individual shareholder. And Matt Belloni sits down with Lucas Shaw on The Town to talk about who really stole the show at the Grammys.
Notes from the legal underbelly of the #MeToo movement, and other pressing issues on my docket. Five years after journalist Moira Donegan created a Google spreadsheet titled “Shitty Media Men,” wherein women could anonymously list allegations of sexual misconduct by men in the teleco and publishing industries, she’s facing the growing likelihood of having to defend herself at trial. On Thursday, a federal judge in Brooklyn rejected Donegan’s attempt to block a lawsuit brought by Stephen Elliott, the author of The Adderall Babies and About Cherry, who claims that he was defamed from a spreadsheet entry that stated he faced “rape accusations, sexual harassment, [and] coercion.” Elliott is seeking $1.5 million in damages for the alleged emotional distress.
It was not supposed to be this way at all. The spreadsheet, as Donegan once wrote in an essay, was created in Oct. 2017 to empower women to share stories of harassment or an assault without fear of retaliation. Created just weeks after the Harvey Weinstein scandal had exploded, and #MeToo was the hashtag du jour, the “Shitty Media Men” whisper network was intended to be a safe space for long-suffering, muzzled victims of horrific workplace misbehavior. “No one could be fired, harassed, or publicly smeared for telling her story when that story was not attached to her name,” Donegan believed...
FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT 
What I’m hearing about the post-slap resignation, the race issue, and the Scientology question, and more. MATTHEW BELLONI 
No modern G.O.P. primary has matched the surreal vitriol of the McCormick-Oz television proxy war. TINA NGUYEN 
A white showrunner working with Ava Duvernay hired a diverse writers room for a new series. Then the staff turned on her. MATTHEW BELLONI 
Musings on the questions of our time: What is Ari Emanuel really worth? And what’s Buffett secretly up to? WILLIAM D. COHAN 
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