“Please do your best to ignore it. I will try as well but probably fail.” That’s IAC chief Barry Diller in a memo to staffers about what to do about the coming onslaught of press interest as he battles Liberty Media’s John Malone in court over the future of the company. Though, um, the media blitz is sorta kinda absolutely indeed already here. But today, as the trial begins in Delaware, is when the fun starts. That’s when company documents and sniping testimony will be on the table for all to gawk at.

Continues Diller: “At the end of the day, it’s purely a business dispute. We are highly confident in our legal position and are looking forward to proving our case to the judge. But, whatever the outcome, you have much to be proud of. And no one, including those seeking to dramatize this dispute with generic and often wrongheaded characterizations of our Company, can or should take that away from you.”

And he’s right: Nobody can take that away from IAC staffers. Except Diller himself. Which he did to 40 Ask.com employees alst week when he fired them.