Overview
- Madison Square Garden Entertainment filed a defamation suit in Manhattan Supreme Court on July 16 naming Wired, reporter Noah Shachtman, co‑author Maddy Varner and editor Katie Drummond and asking for a jury trial, compensatory and punitive damages, and a correction or retraction.
- Wired’s July 9 story said a leaked internal “talent” database of roughly 40,000 entries included race, gender and sexual‑orientation fields and assigned celebrity ‘risk’ scores, with about 93 entries labeled “LGBTQIA,” and said reporting was based on records released by the hacking group ShinyHunters.
- MSG says the data came from a standard customer‑relationship system used for outreach and inclusion, that Wired relied on stolen files and cherry‑picked fragments, and that any orientation fields were used to invite people to events and identify sponsorship or community opportunities.
- Wired has stood by the accuracy of its reporting and said it will vigorously defend the article in court, and the reporters involved have publicly pushed back against MSG’s claims.
- The case will hinge on whether reporting that used leaked material is protected and accurate and could set limits on how newsrooms use hacked records and how courts judge allegations about venue surveillance and VIP tracking; earlier Wired reporting about MSG’s surveillance of a transgender woman has already raised related privacy concerns.