S.B.F.’s Strategy, Tucker’s Troubles, a McConnell Fantasy

Good morning,

Thanks for reading The Backstory, our weekly digest of the best new work at Puck.

It was a fantastic week: Matt Belloni assessed the Oscars sweepstakes; Dylan Byers examined how the Tucker Carlson controversy is playing out at Fox; Tara Palmeri explored Mitch McConnell’s electoral fantasy; Teddy Schleifer and Eriq Gardner dug into S.B.F.’s legal options; and Julia Alexander presaged ESPN’s streaming moves.

Check out these stories, and others, via the links below. And stick around for the backstory on how it all came together.

WALL STREET:
Bill Cohan envisions the next I.P.O. scramble.
and…
Eriq Gardner unveils a Zaz legal melee for the ages.

SILICON VALLEY:
Eriq and Teddy Schleifer examine S.B.F.’s legal options.
and…
Baratunde Thurston digs into the ChatGPT arms race.

MEDIA:
Dylan Byers explains the hunger games inside the Fox News bunker.
and…
Julia Alexander presages ESPN’s next streaming power play.

HOLLYWOOD:
Matt Belloni offers his second annual Oscar campaign awards.

WASHINGTON:
Julia Ioffe digs into the Oscar hopeful that Putin never saw coming.
and…
Tara Palmeri unpacks Mitch McConnell’s election fantasy.
and…
Tina Nguyen deciphers the CPACalypse.

PODCASTS:
Matt interviews Academy C.E.O. Bill Kramer about the new look of the Oscars on The Town.
and…
Peter and Eriq discuss the NFL’s head-scratching lawsuit on The Powers That Be.

Meanwhile, I also encourage you to take advantage of our article gifting feature. You can share our work with your colleagues, friends, and family. Subscribers are entitled to 5 article gifts per month.

Puck Comes to Washington

On Wednesday evening, my partners and I had the sincere honor of joining the French Ambassador to the U.S., Laurent Bili, and his wife, Madame Sabine Raczy, for our company’s first event in Washington D.C. at the Résidence de France in Kalorama. The theme of the evening was the First Amendment, one of the most powerful concepts undergirding our democracy and one of the most perfect sentences ever composed.

People in Washington can be divided by their politics or professions or experiences. But the one thing that unites the town is its devotion to the founding fathers’ eloquent idealism, which is, of course, the foundation of our business here at Puck. Our guest of honor was the very embodiment of this higher truth: General Mark Milley, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was joined by his wife, Hollyanne.

The Résidence de France is, in my view at least, the most beautiful building in town, a veritable castle a short walk from Dupont Circle. And it’s filled with priceless art and extraordinary artifacts of history. As I did a walkthrough with my incomparable colleague Alex Bigler, the genius behind the event, I ambled across one of Napoleon’s rugs and accidentally put down my coffee on Louis XIV’s former hunting desk.

We wanted to respect the venue’s history, but also add some of our own personality: We installed a couple of old fashioned typewriters, one from 1921 and the other from 1957, and encouraged guests to write about their favorite journalists (Robert Caro and Jodi Kantor appeared as favorites) or old magazine covers (people still love that old V.F. Demi Moore cover). We couldn’t help but order macarons with our logo on one side and the French flag on the other. Alex even found a line that had been originally drafted into the First Amendment, before being cut for one reason or another. We turned it into a neon sign and hung it in the sitting room. And, of course, we brought in 250 balloons, because who doesn’t love balloons.

Our guests represented the very best of Washington: lawmakers, journalists, business leaders, K Street players, power attorneys, and more; some of my media idols, like Kara Swisher and Mike Allen swung by. The lawyer and #resistance hero George Conway was there, and so was CNN C.E.O. Chris Licht, the recently appointed White House communications director, Ben LaBolt, and the legendary journalist Sally Quinn. It was also great to see Sophia Bush, Jim Acosta, Pamela Brown, and so many others.

My partners traveled far and wide to be there. It was a delight, but hardly a surprise, to watch lawmakers and media people hover over Matt Belloni. Everyone wanted a piece of Dylan Byers. But the most popular person in attendance was unquestionably Julia Ioffe, followed closely behind by Tara Palmeri and Tina Nguyen, the dream team behind our flagship D.C. private email, The Best & The Brightest. Some White House officials showed up exclusively for Peter Hamby, who fled the town for Los Angeles years ago, begging him to come back.

All of them halted their conversations when General Milley ascended to the podium and offered his deeply felt remarks about what the First Amendment meant to him. It was a powerful moment, overwhelming really, and it perfectly captured what makes Washington so special, and our country so great. And without getting all misty-eyed on a Saturday morning, I think it reminded all of us why we got into this business in the first place. Things are changing fast in our media and our economy, to be sure, but the evening was a reminder of the primacy of the vision and brilliance of our first principles. It remains the story of our time, and precisely the sort of story that matters the most to Puck.

Have a great weekend,
Jon