Welcome to the NewsWhip Daily spotlight round-up for the week of May 2nd. This week, The Supreme Court plans to overturn Roe, and Dave Chappelle is attacked on stage.
If you’d like to subscribe to the newsletter itself, you can do that here.
May 2nd: MyPillow CEO re-banned from Twitter
Amid ongoing conversations about censorship on Twitter as Elon Musk’s purchase of the platform unfolds, the MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has once again been banned from the platform after trying to rejoin it.
Lindell rejoined the platform via an alt account in the early afternoon yesterday, but by the end of the day had already been removed from the platform again.
The stunt did generate considerable buzz, however, first among conservative outlets that celebrated his return, then among others that reported his banning from the platform. In total, there were almost 200 articles and 140k engagements.
May 3rd: SCOTUS plans to overturn Roe in leaked document
Last night, POLITICO published a report of a leaked document of a draft opinion from the Supreme Court that would overturn Roe vs. Wade in the US.
The report was published just before 9pm EST last night, to immediate consternation, with social media reacting strongly to the news.
Politico posted the full text of the opinion in PDF form, so was the main driver of the news, but the scoop spawned thousands of stories and almost a million engagements as people reacted to the potential change in the law.
Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez were two of the loudest voices speaking out against the decision, with their tweets on the subject receiving tens of thousands of engagements.Â
May 4th: Dave Chappelle attacked on stage in LA
Last night, comedian Dave Chappelle was attacked on stage in Los Angeles, when a member of the crowd ran on stage and tackled him at the Netflix is a Joke event.Â
This has immediately been widely written about, with 2k articles and almost 185k engagements, which look likely to continue to grow.Â
While the whole narrative was highly engaged, no single article has yet dominated, with the top piece from ABC News having only 9k engagements.
Some of the most engaged social media commentary was about the fact that Chris Rock joined Chappelle in the aftermath and asked “Was that Will Smith”?
May 5th: Shell announces tripled profits
This morning, energy company Shell announced profits had tripled at a time when consumer-side gas prices are surging.
This has led to accusations of profiteering from some, and the news has consistent, growing public interest as the day begins.
The reports came out of the UK, so interest has been building since the release this morning a few hours ago.
The top reporting has come from the BBC, and MPs have also weighed in on the situation, with several highly engaged calls for the government to tax energy companies at a higher rate to pay for subsidies.Â
May 6th: TurboTax owner Intuit agrees to pay settlement
On Wednesday, news emerged that TurboTax owner Intuit had agreed to pay $141 million to consumers that it ‘unfairly charged’ to use its tax-filing services.Â
This immediately generated a huge amount of both public and media interest, that has lasted at least two days, as people look to understand if they are eligible for the payment.
The engagement to reporting about this has been very spread out, with no single story receiving more than 12k engagements from more than 200k total, which shows that people are getting this information from all kinds of sources.Â
There has also been a transition in the type of reporting, moving away from straight reporting and towards the likes of NBC News doing how-tos on how to get your money back a day later.
That’s all for this week, but don’t forget you can subscribe to the NewsWhip Daily to receive the top predicted stories of the morning and every spotlight delivered straight to your inbox.
