Overview
- Madison Square Garden Entertainment filed a defamation lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court on Thursday seeking a retraction, a correction and monetary damages over Wired’s July 9 article.
- MSG alleges Wired and reporter Noah Shachtman used data stolen by an extortionist hacking group and cherry-picked fragments to create a false narrative that the company targeted LGBTQIA people.
- Wired’s July 9 story reported that a talent database at MSG included nearly 40,000 entries with fields for race, gender and sexual orientation and assigned ‘risk scores’ to some celebrities.
- MSG says the records were routine customer-relationship data used to invite people to events, identify sponsorship and sales opportunities and support charitable outreach, and it pointed to past donations and a Pride employee group as evidence of inclusionary intent.
- The case will test how courts treat reporting based on leaked or hacked material and could shape legal and privacy debates about venue surveillance, journalist sourcing and protections for LGBTQIA patrons as the litigation begins and Wired’s public response remains unreported.