Why is Blake Lively so overrated?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

I don't see those two splitting up even if they hate each other (not saying they do, but IF). Being a Hollywood power couple is much of their appeal. On the other hand I wouldn't be surprised if Taylor Swift drops her like a hot potato. Taylor is ruthless in maintaining her image and if I were her I wouldn't want my name anywhere near this mess. See also Karlie Kloss as mentioned by a PP.

Maybe, if my spouse lied to me and I acted in ways that later destroyed my reputation based on those lies, it would destroy my marriage. But they have four kids so there’s that. And perhaps he knew she was lying and encouraged it.

It’s a matter of perception not lies. There is a difference. I know you want to see her utterly destroyed but it’s just not going to happen.

Clearly I disagree. As do a number of other posters here. She ginned up a story to lay a foundation for taking over the movie and for her retaliation claims. She doesn’t have a case. And yes, both her and her husband’s reps have been destroyed, that is already obvious. He has enough money to insulate them from most of the consequences but it remains the case.

I don’t care if you all disagree.

That’s obvious. You live in your own reality.

I also don’t say “her and her husband” constantly and pretend I am educated.

I don’t either. So what’ s your point?

What’s yours? I have opinions just like anyone else. And some of the loudest voices here are embarrassingly ignorant so i don’t care if those people are of a different opinion.

I think that opinion goes both ways. And you are blinded to seeing any merit whatsoever in his case. Which makes it hard to take you seriously.

You don’t have to take me seriously. Just keep scrolling if it suits you.

[Anonymous]

I'm following most of the back and forth, but I just don't understand "Nicepool." I googled and get that it's a character from the Deadpool/Wolverine movies, but don't know anything about those films. Does the character look like Baldoni? Act like him? Why is it a bad thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any chance a judge approves the gag order? Can anyone here with legal insight provide some clarity?

The are asking for both a protective order (that's what people are referring to as the "gag order") and a hearing to discuss appropriate conduct of counsel moving forward. I can't find a copy of their motion online though so I'm not sure exactly what the are asking the protective order to cover.

They'll get the hearing, that's an easy one and could be rolled into other preliminary hearings the judge might schedule as well. I would expect the judge at the hearing to lecture attorneys on both sides regarding communications to the press, not just Baldoni's lawyers.

I do think there are some things that Baldoni's lawyer has either released or is proposing releasing that the court would consider issuing a PO against. For instance I think it's highly likely the judge could issue a PO preventing Baldoni from releasing footage from the birth scene, where even if you go by Baldoni's complaint, the most Lively was wearing was a pair of underwear briefs on the bottom, and her legs were up in stirrups. That would be an easy one. I am less sure about how the judge would treat other requests for nondisclosure, of stuff like texts/emails between the parties. A lot of it is already in the complaints, I don't know how much else there even is. The judge will have to weight the potentially prejudicial or damaging impact of any potential disclosure against Baldoni's right to defend himself in the court of public opinion. And I don't know if Lively is asking for a blanket PO (unlikely to get) or something more targeted, which is more likely to be successful.

I know the press has a lot of protections, but do you think his case against the New York Times has legitimacy? They left out some key texts. e.g. Two people on his team said there was so much ammo against Justin when it came to the sexual harassment claims, but they left out a part where they both said that those accusations weren't true.

I would be pretty surprised if his NYT suit makes it past summary judgment. The only reservation I have is that recent big settlement by ABC news with Trump, which also surprised me but in retrospect I think they did it to avoid litigation that could go to the Supreme Court and potentially overturn important precedent (Sullivan). So that gives me pause and makes me wonder if we are just in a different era. However, that was Trump as plaintiff and the odds of it going to the SC are high and he appointed half the justices. I don't think Baldoni v. NYT is going that route.

In order to prove defamation, he has to prove "actual malice." He has to prove that they published something that was intentionally misleading with the specific goal of hurting Baldoni. I think this will be virtually impossible for a bunch of reasons -- the piece actually has multiple bylines and it would be hard to prove they collaborated to take Baldoni down, the NYT's fact checking process is pretty rigorous and they will have documentation of everything, and his argument is basically that they failed to provide full context to the allegation but they will simply argue that they reported on Lively's complaint and the allegations they had at the time, and then later reported on Baldoni's complaint and his counter-allegations. News orgs are not required to hold stories until every bit of information is available before reporting.

The NYT has also said they plan to vigorously defend in the case, so that weighs against a potential settlement. I don't think Baldoni has much of a case on the law here. I do wonder what a decisive loss in the NYT case does with regards to his battle against Lively and Reynolds. It won't help, but I don't know how much it will hurt.

Am I understanding correctly that you’re saying if the texts provided to them were edited/incomplete, then they could be shielded from liability by relying on those texts? In other words, they didn’t need to investigate whether those texts were complete or edited before reporting their story? If so, that’s kind of unfortunate because they essentially amplified edited/incomplete texts to present a completely different story than the unedited/complete texts would show! I feel like the due diligence standards should be higher for New York Times journalists…

If they verified the texts were real, no, I don't think they are legally required to ensure they have every single text in a text chain.

Also, even though some of the meaning of specific texts was changed when taken out of context, the broad outlines of what they reported was true -- Baldoni hired a PR firm to plant stories about Lively online in order to undermine her reputation in case she came forward with details about the alleged harassment on set. The context that has since been provided doesn't challenge any of that. It just puts some of the comments in the texts into gentler framing.

I think it's going to be near impossible for Baldoni to prove the NYT intentionally mislead the public with this story because he did actually do what he is accused of doing in terms of the PR story -- he hired the firm specifically to turn public sentiment against Lively. Sure, he'll argue he did that because the harassment allegations are false and he was getting ahead of that story. That's fine and the NYT has reported on his argument as well. But those texts were not made up and the story itself is still accurate even if additional context has come to light.

He basically has no case here.

Failing to provide context isn't libel against anyone.

Failing to provide context against a public figure will be laughed out of court as libel.

PP here and this is a much more succinct version, yes. I don't think he'd have a case even if he were a public person, though, because they didn't print anything untrue.

I think that is not enitekh correct, they altered one of the texts to take out emojis that indicated it was satire.

Meant to say they altered at least one of the texts in a way that changed its meaning, that is different than just failing to print entire text chain.

I have never thought of the upside down smiley face as meaning I didn't mean anything I just said or satire. I googled online for descriptions of it (from a time pre this saga) and it seems that there are about 100 different intended meanings of the emoji. Many say they use it to indicate resignation or whatever or dry humour etc. I am not sure one can assume the intention at the time the emoji was sent was that it means the text that was sent was satire.

If the reporter was unsure what it meant, perhaps she should have asked the person who texted it. You know, practice journalism.

I'm a journalist, and I absolutely think the NY times is in trouble. For one thing, if you are making claims about someone, you need to tell them and give them enough time to make a response before publishing. They failed to do that.

They did though-- Baldoni had a heads up and request for comment, it was on the short side. However as my reporter husband told me, that's not unusual if you are asking a public person with lawyers and professional PR for comment (whereas if it was a private person you might give them more time to respond, depending on the nature of the allegations). None of the allegations were news to Baldoni-- he was already aware of the on-set harassment allegations and they were also aware of the complaint. So a few hours for comment in that scenario is apparently not unusual (per my DH).

I personally think the reporting was a little sloppy, especially given that they attached Twohey's name to it and took the me too angle. But not wrong. And they had confirmation of the texts veracity from the PR firm.

It would be different if it was shown the texts were falsified. They weren't. They were cherry picked. But Baldoni did in fact hire the firm to smear Lively -- in addition to the texts, there are documents that show the firm's goals and plans of attack. It's not like they went to press with nothing or lies. The coverage was just slanted toward Lively, which is not illegal or legally actionable.

They did go to press with lies, lies that would have been uncovered had they talked to him, or to the pr ladies.

Please point to the lies they published. And no, "Lively alleges XYZ" is not a lie of it is what she is alleging.

I’m not going through every line of the article with you, it’s lengthy. Her entire case is built on straws and even the tiniest but of investigation would have revealed that.

It isn't the NYT's job to litigate her whole case. She filed a complaint. They reported in it. They verified that the texts were real. That's it. You are expecting them to serve as judge and jury before publishing info about litigation involving noteworthy people. That's not how it works

I think the NYT said they had reviewed thousands of pages of texts and emails, which makes it seem like that’s more than just what was in the complaint but I don’t know. They also presented the story like “anatomy of a smear,” not a run of the mill news story reporting that a complaint was filed.

[Anonymous]

The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

lol, sure Jan. Come back to gloat when that case is decided by the Court in their favor, instead of by settlement. And stay off all social media because you'll find the same level of anti-Blake sentiment every where.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

Well I’m a real person and I emotionally want him to be successful in it because it seems unfair that they can publish that based on what came out after, but I don’t know the law on it. Not an idiot or swayed by astroturfing though. Nice try!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any chance a judge approves the gag order? Can anyone here with legal insight provide some clarity?

The are asking for both a protective order (that's what people are referring to as the "gag order") and a hearing to discuss appropriate conduct of counsel moving forward. I can't find a copy of their motion online though so I'm not sure exactly what the are asking the protective order to cover.

They'll get the hearing, that's an easy one and could be rolled into other preliminary hearings the judge might schedule as well. I would expect the judge at the hearing to lecture attorneys on both sides regarding communications to the press, not just Baldoni's lawyers.

I do think there are some things that Baldoni's lawyer has either released or is proposing releasing that the court would consider issuing a PO against. For instance I think it's highly likely the judge could issue a PO preventing Baldoni from releasing footage from the birth scene, where even if you go by Baldoni's complaint, the most Lively was wearing was a pair of underwear briefs on the bottom, and her legs were up in stirrups. That would be an easy one. I am less sure about how the judge would treat other requests for nondisclosure, of stuff like texts/emails between the parties. A lot of it is already in the complaints, I don't know how much else there even is. The judge will have to weight the potentially prejudicial or damaging impact of any potential disclosure against Baldoni's right to defend himself in the court of public opinion. And I don't know if Lively is asking for a blanket PO (unlikely to get) or something more targeted, which is more likely to be successful.

I know the press has a lot of protections, but do you think his case against the New York Times has legitimacy? They left out some key texts. e.g. Two people on his team said there was so much ammo against Justin when it came to the sexual harassment claims, but they left out a part where they both said that those accusations weren't true.

I would be pretty surprised if his NYT suit makes it past summary judgment. The only reservation I have is that recent big settlement by ABC news with Trump, which also surprised me but in retrospect I think they did it to avoid litigation that could go to the Supreme Court and potentially overturn important precedent (Sullivan). So that gives me pause and makes me wonder if we are just in a different era. However, that was Trump as plaintiff and the odds of it going to the SC are high and he appointed half the justices. I don't think Baldoni v. NYT is going that route.

In order to prove defamation, he has to prove "actual malice." He has to prove that they published something that was intentionally misleading with the specific goal of hurting Baldoni. I think this will be virtually impossible for a bunch of reasons -- the piece actually has multiple bylines and it would be hard to prove they collaborated to take Baldoni down, the NYT's fact checking process is pretty rigorous and they will have documentation of everything, and his argument is basically that they failed to provide full context to the allegation but they will simply argue that they reported on Lively's complaint and the allegations they had at the time, and then later reported on Baldoni's complaint and his counter-allegations. News orgs are not required to hold stories until every bit of information is available before reporting.

The NYT has also said they plan to vigorously defend in the case, so that weighs against a potential settlement. I don't think Baldoni has much of a case on the law here. I do wonder what a decisive loss in the NYT case does with regards to his battle against Lively and Reynolds. It won't help, but I don't know how much it will hurt.

Am I understanding correctly that you’re saying if the texts provided to them were edited/incomplete, then they could be shielded from liability by relying on those texts? In other words, they didn’t need to investigate whether those texts were complete or edited before reporting their story? If so, that’s kind of unfortunate because they essentially amplified edited/incomplete texts to present a completely different story than the unedited/complete texts would show! I feel like the due diligence standards should be higher for New York Times journalists…

If they verified the texts were real, no, I don't think they are legally required to ensure they have every single text in a text chain.

Also, even though some of the meaning of specific texts was changed when taken out of context, the broad outlines of what they reported was true -- Baldoni hired a PR firm to plant stories about Lively online in order to undermine her reputation in case she came forward with details about the alleged harassment on set. The context that has since been provided doesn't challenge any of that. It just puts some of the comments in the texts into gentler framing.

I think it's going to be near impossible for Baldoni to prove the NYT intentionally mislead the public with this story because he did actually do what he is accused of doing in terms of the PR story -- he hired the firm specifically to turn public sentiment against Lively. Sure, he'll argue he did that because the harassment allegations are false and he was getting ahead of that story. That's fine and the NYT has reported on his argument as well. But those texts were not made up and the story itself is still accurate even if additional context has come to light.

He basically has no case here.

Failing to provide context isn't libel against anyone.

Failing to provide context against a public figure will be laughed out of court as libel.

PP here and this is a much more succinct version, yes. I don't think he'd have a case even if he were a public person, though, because they didn't print anything untrue.

I think that is not enitekh correct, they altered one of the texts to take out emojis that indicated it was satire.

Meant to say they altered at least one of the texts in a way that changed its meaning, that is different than just failing to print entire text chain.

I have never thought of the upside down smiley face as meaning I didn't mean anything I just said or satire. I googled online for descriptions of it (from a time pre this saga) and it seems that there are about 100 different intended meanings of the emoji. Many say they use it to indicate resignation or whatever or dry humour etc. I am not sure one can assume the intention at the time the emoji was sent was that it means the text that was sent was satire.

If the reporter was unsure what it meant, perhaps she should have asked the person who texted it. You know, practice journalism.

I'm a journalist, and I absolutely think the NY times is in trouble. For one thing, if you are making claims about someone, you need to tell them and give them enough time to make a response before publishing. They failed to do that.

They did though-- Baldoni had a heads up and request for comment, it was on the short side. However as my reporter husband told me, that's not unusual if you are asking a public person with lawyers and professional PR for comment (whereas if it was a private person you might give them more time to respond, depending on the nature of the allegations). None of the allegations were news to Baldoni-- he was already aware of the on-set harassment allegations and they were also aware of the complaint. So a few hours for comment in that scenario is apparently not unusual (per my DH).

I personally think the reporting was a little sloppy, especially given that they attached Twohey's name to it and took the me too angle. But not wrong. And they had confirmation of the texts veracity from the PR firm.

It would be different if it was shown the texts were falsified. They weren't. They were cherry picked. But Baldoni did in fact hire the firm to smear Lively -- in addition to the texts, there are documents that show the firm's goals and plans of attack. It's not like they went to press with nothing or lies. The coverage was just slanted toward Lively, which is not illegal or legally actionable.

They did go to press with lies, lies that would have been uncovered had they talked to him, or to the pr ladies.

Please point to the lies they published. And no, "Lively alleges XYZ" is not a lie of it is what she is alleging.

I’m not going through every line of the article with you, it’s lengthy. Her entire case is built on straws and even the tiniest but of investigation would have revealed that.

It isn't the NYT's job to litigate her whole case. She filed a complaint. They reported in it. They verified that the texts were real. That's it. You are expecting them to serve as judge and jury before publishing info about litigation involving noteworthy people. That's not how it works

I think the NYT said they had reviewed thousands of pages of texts and emails, which makes it seem like that’s more than just what was in the complaint but I don’t know. They also presented the story like “anatomy of a smear,” not a run of the mill news story reporting that a complaint was filed.

They explicitly say the story is based on review of the texts and conversations with Lively.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

I don’t know that we all think he’s gonna win the New York Times. I think many of us are disturbed that they let that run as it did it cost him his podcast, and he was basically canceled for 10 days until his team could properly respond.

It seems unethical and it’s disappointing that the writer was one of the journalists who helped take down Harvey Weinstein.

Again, weinstein had decades of horrific and terrorizing and illlegal behavior from multiple women with an eerily similar story. While I don’t think the standard needs to be near that high, it needed to be higher than what it was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

lol, sure Jan. Come back to gloat when that case is decided by the Court in their favor, instead of by settlement. And stay off all social media because you'll find the same level of anti-Blake sentiment every where.

I'm not actually pro-Blake at all, but there is ZERO chance Baldoni wins his suit against the NYT. In fact, 100 pages ago, everyone agreed it was a strategy move on his part and not a serious suit. It is incredible to watch the thread morph and egg each other on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

Well I’m a real person and I emotionally want him to be successful in it because it seems unfair that they can publish that based on what came out after, but I don’t know the law on it. Not an idiot or swayed by astroturfing though. Nice try!

Of course you're swayed by astroturfing. Pretty much everyone is. That's why it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm following most of the back and forth, but I just don't understand "Nicepool." I googled and get that it's a character from the Deadpool/Wolverine movies, but don't know anything about those films. Does the character look like Baldoni? Act like him? Why is it a bad thing?

He has a man bun, makes a comment about how lady Deadpool looks good considering she recently had a baby and then says he can make that comment because he identifies as a feminist, and I think he gets killed outside a flower shop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

I don’t think the majority said that …

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact that the majority of folks in this thread now appear convinced that Baldoni is going to be successful in his NYT suit is basically proof positive of bots, astroturfing or idiocy; I'm just not sure which one!

Well I’m a real person and I emotionally want him to be successful in it because it seems unfair that they can publish that based on what came out after, but I don’t know the law on it. Not an idiot or swayed by astroturfing though. Nice try!

Of course you're swayed by astroturfing. Pretty much everyone is. That's why it works.

Wouldn’t I have to be on social media for that? Also, can’t I have my own opinions, or have you decided I can’t?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm following most of the back and forth, but I just don't understand "Nicepool." I googled and get that it's a character from the Deadpool/Wolverine movies, but don't know anything about those films. Does the character look like Baldoni? Act like him? Why is it a bad thing?

Meh, it’s not a big deal. Nicepool is a fake feminist who makes his living off of feminism and he complimented someone for looking great after having a baby. The speculation was that it was based on Justin.

I’m not really sure why his lawyers raised it. I really don’t think it’s relevant. It may show that they were mocking him. It may also show that considering Blake was saying how harmful this has been for her, they made a joke out of it Either way it doesn’t seem like a big deal or relevant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm following most of the back and forth, but I just don't understand "Nicepool." I googled and get that it's a character from the Deadpool/Wolverine movies, but don't know anything about those films. Does the character look like Baldoni? Act like him? Why is it a bad thing?

He has a man bun, makes a comment about how lady Deadpool looks good considering she recently had a baby and then says he can make that comment because he identifies as a feminist, and I think he gets killed outside a flower shop.

I mean, he is 100% based on Baldoni. But that's satire, not bullying and certainly not illegal.