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Court Out: David Remnick speaks onstage during the New York Public Radio Gala at the Glasshouse on November 18, 2025. (Photo by Slaven Vlasic/Getty Images)
Welcome to the latest edition of Breaker. If this email has been forwarded, you can subscribe here and send your questions and complaints here. If you have a tip contact the 24/7 Breaker Tip Hotline via text or Signal # 551 655 2343. Anonymity guaranteed!
In tonight’s scoop-packed edition, The New Yorker was one of several international media outlets targeted with litigation over its reporting by a tech mogul. In a court battle that has taken years to resolve, tonight we reveal the outcome for David Remnick’s publication – and its implications for litigants who "jurisdiction shop” in defamation lawsuits.
Also, let the festival of Ellen commence! Soon-to-be former NYT Business Editor Ellen Pollock, that is, who this week is celebrating her farewell with a week full of events we’ve dubbed “Ellen-A-Palooza.” Read on for all the details from Pollock’s farewell tour, and the latest on the search for her successor.
Plus, Semafor poaches a top Politico journalist as the Smith and Smith run outlet expands to a new coverage area, and with summer (unofficially) over, media events have come roaring back to life. Straight off a flight from Melbourne, Breaker was out and about in Manhattan Wednesday night to bring you scene reports from beehiiv’s Media Collective shindig and the converging of NY political operatives, hacks and flacks at a downtown watering hole.
Finally tonight, we have a bumper edition of Journo Jobs with gigs at WSJ, NBC, Politico, Vulture, Bloomberg, CNN, NYT, Axios, Punchbowl News, and TNT Sports.
Mentioned tonight: Anna Wintour, Joe Kahn, A.G. Sulzberger, Deborah Solomon, Dennis Berman, Katie Kingsbury, Sam Dolnick, Jacqueline M. Welch, Rob Copeland, Pete Wells, Julie Bloom, Mohammed Hadi, David Enrich, Ashwin Seshagiri, Rich Barbieri, Matt Purdy, Adrienne Carter, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Pui-Wing Tam, Ian Ward, Blake Neff, Jacob Weisberg, Jeff Bezos, Daniel Kaplan, Matt Brittin, Michael Savage, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Ellise Shafer, Nick Vivarelli, Marina Hyde, Bron Maher, Andrew Murfett, Ana Marie Cox, Brad Slager, Charlotte Klein, Joshua Hunt, Jacob Wasserman, Charlie Cotton, Peter Greenberg, Dana Harris-Bridson, David Covucci, Charlotte Tobitt, Erik Slavin, Sofia Coppola, Sara Moonves, Callie Holtermann, Jessica Testa, Josephine Stratman, Luigi Mangione, Ian Mohr, Brian Stelter, Jake Tapper, Adam Green, Betsy Reed, Stella Bugbee, Emma Fitzsimmons, Astead Herndon, Julie Bloom, Joe Hagan, Ali Bianco, Daniel Biss, Meher Ahmad, Michelle Goldberg, Lydia Polgreen, David Freedlander, Liena Zagare, Kurt Andersen, Anne Kreamer, Michelle Hoffner, Anna Bahr, Sam Levine, Erik Bottcher, Carlos Ortiz, Shaifali Puri, Ron Chernow, Michael Cruz, Gerry Cardinale, Alex Sherman, Campbell Rawlins, Wendy McMahon, Don Lemon, Maxi Tani, Kat Tenbarge, Jason Del Rey, Hope King, Bradford William Davis, Akash Pasricha, Marisa Kabas, Lance Frank, Tyler Denk, Dan Krenitsyn, Preeya Goenka, Tony Varghese, Amanda Katz, Jonathan Wald, David Lim, Hamish Bowles, Elon Musk, Alex Gibney, and more.
Talk of the Court
(Exclusive.) It was a 2023 New Yorker article headlined 'A Confession Exposes India’s Secret Hacking Industry' by writer David D. Kirkpatrick that would trigger a multi-year effort by a highly litigious tech mogul to have the Condé Nast publication prosecuted for criminal libel in Europe.
The piece reported on the booming "hacking-for-hire" business that has taken off in India in recent years and been weaponized by Western clients.
“Over espresso, Rey, who has short black hair and a neatly trimmed beard, told me that he is not a programmer himself,” Kirkpatrick wrote. “But, when [British law firm] Burlingtons hired him to look into whether an Indian company had hacked Azima, he remembered hearing that, about a decade earlier, private intelligence firms across Europe had been approached by an Indian entrepreneur named Rajat Khare, who ran a company called Appin Security. ‘From what I have learned in this investigation, he e-mailed everybody,’ Rey told me. Khare had pitched what he called ‘ethical hacking.’”
Reuters, had previously reported Appin had boasted that it could get remote access to devices including computers, websites, and email accounts, in a bid to hoover up confidential information.
Khare, who lives part of the year in Switzerland, has used a variety of law firms in several jurisdictions to threaten U.S., British, and French-language media organizations over stories they had published or were preparing to print. Khare vigorously disputes the allegations in The New Yorker article, and Breaker has not independently confirmed them.
His campaign against David Remnick’s publication involved …
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Hats all Folks
With today’s launch of New York Fashion Week, we’re dropping the first merch from the House of Breaker collection with the official Breaker Baseball Cap.
We collaborated with designers Small Talk Studio on a limited selection of snapback-style caps, built with a single front panel and available in three color combinations.
Your purchase shows your support for Breaker and fearless independent journalism. The hats are $60 (including shipping and delivery). It’s a very limited run, so click here to snag a Breaker hat before they sell out!
Ellen-A-Palooza
(Exclusive.) A week of celebrations to toast outgoing New York Times Business Editor, Ellen Pollock, began Tuesday with a surprise dinner organized by Europe Editor, Adrienne Carter, who had flown across the pond for the week of festivities. Amongst those in attendance: gun Investigative Reporter, Jessica Silver-Greenberg, Technology Editor, Pui-Wing Tam, and Economics Editor, Deborah Solomon.
As Breaker first reported in July, Pollock is stepping aside as business editor but staying at The Gray Lady in a yet-to-be-announced new role.
“Ellen-A-Palooza” continued Wednesday night with an exclusive …
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The rest of this newsletter is for paid subscribers.
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⁘ As credited in The New York Times, CNBC, Axios, The New York Post, CNN, Bloomberg, The Guardian, and more.