Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

Was this meant to show the nyt is going to lose its MTD? Because it shows the opposite—attributing all this to the legal complaint it describes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

They come out with a bang, just being completely 100% factually wrong. They say they agreed to provide an intimacy coordinator. When we find out later, justin hired the intimacy coordinator during reproduction, texted Blake, I’m really excited about the intimacy coordinator I hired! And then proceeded to set up a meeting with her. To which Blake said, I’m good. I’ll wait till I get on set.

Did you gather any of that from this first paragraph or did it look like she had to beg them for an intimacy coordinator? I’m sorry the article was really bad and I understood why he’s suing, even if he doesn’t win. This has not been good for the New York Times even if they prevail legally, and frankly, this is not been good for Megan, and she has weakened her reputation and made it harder for future women who want to come forward.

None of what they write is factually wrong. Regarding the intimacy coordinator, it says they agreed to hire a full-time intimacy coordinator, not that they didn't have one at all before. Even though they had an IC hired before the hiatus, it's not clear that she'd spent a single day on set, be abuse none of the scheduled sex scenes had been filmed yet.

And Blake saying in preproduction she was fine to meet the IC on set doesn't negate the truth of that. It may add context, but that's what a subsequent article was for

Also, if you read the emails Twohey sent to Wayfarer prior to publishing, she includes a ton of detail for verification. Had they wanted to, at that time, they could have offered the context you are talking about. They chose not to -- they chose to offer a single, vague paragraph via Bryan Freedman denying everything entirely and with a bunch of angry invective about Blake. And they made no indication that they had more specific context or that they wanted to provide it. They didn't even say "look, these situations are complex and your reporting is inaccurate, but we need more time to explain how," which might have changed how they framed it. They chose not to.. The allegation that the story was unfairly one sided doesn't work for me because Wayfarer chose to claim up and issue a flat denial immediately. They didn't take their chance to provide another side until they filed their lawsuit, which was duly reported as well.

OK, except there’s no such thing as a full-time intimacy coordinator. They come on days when there are intimate scenes filmed. Do you really think an intimacy coordinator just hangs out on that all the time waiting in case they are needed? It’s just not how these things are done. The article and the complaint implied there was no intimacy coordinator until Blake complained. That was obviously proven to be false.

Blake's 17-point list, which was part of NYT reporting requested to have a full time intimacy coordinator on set to accompany Blake at all times. Because part of her allegation was that Baldoni and Heath added intimacy to scenes not scripted that way, this was needed to protect her. And Wayfarer agreed to provide this.

You can argue that was not necessary, but it's factually accurate. And no, it doesn't "imply" no IC had been hired at all. It just says that Blake requested and the studio agreed to provide a full time IC. Again, that is accurate.

Had Wayfarer wanted to clarify that they engaged an IC in preproduction, they could have done so when specifically asked prior to publication. They didn't. What do you want the NYT to do?

Implication was that there was no I see. All over the Internet people were like what there was no I see that standard now? They have only implied there wasn’t one in it was deceptive. You can argue all you want, but people were confided.

The fact that princess Blake needed an intimacy coordinator on set to protect her at all times is absolutely ludicrous. I actually think that is going to work against her as an unreasonable demand. That is in no way standard and I’ve never heard of any other actors asking for that.

I am waiting for them to come out and blame it on severe postpartum depression. Blake seemed incredibly paranoid and thought that every man on that set was out to get her.

Look, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this word salad is due to voice-to-text on your phone. Next time try typing it out.

The point is that the NYT requested comment from Wayfarer and outlined Lively's allegations and they chose not to say anything like "we hired an IC before production began." That's on them. The NYT can only report what it knows. They did their due diligence. Lively alleged harassment and requested a full time IC, and Wayfarer agreed to provide one. If Wayfarer had more info about the IC, they should have told the NYT when they asked. You can't decline to comment on a situation when you know a newspaper is about to report about it and then say "hey you didn't include additional context that we had access to but failed to provide even when you asked" and call it defamation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

Was this meant to show the nyt is going to lose its MTD? Because it shows the opposite—attributing all this to the legal complaint it describes

To the contrary, it is bolded because the the New York Times claims to have relied on documents beyond the complaint. There are not thousands of texts in the Complaint and the meaning of “these and other documents” is quite clear.

[Anonymous]

I think NYT did enough, and the case against them will be dismissed.

But I think both NYT and Lively should sue themselves for damages, because they have done more harm to their reputations than Baldoni ever could. (Upside down smiley face emoji.)

It’s early though. I may eat my words if actual facts come out that show he did sexually harass her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

Was this meant to show the nyt is going to lose its MTD? Because it shows the opposite—attributing all this to the legal complaint it describes

To the contrary, it is bolded because the the New York Times claims to have relied on documents beyond the complaint. There are not thousands of texts in the Complaint and the meaning of “these and other documents” is quite clear.

Of course they didn't solely rely on the complaint. They never claimed they did.

In the defamation case, they are saying that anything they reported about the contents of the complaint cannot be defamatory because they were reporting out the contents of a legal filing. Which is true. So all the details they include about what Lively alleges in the complaint cannot be considered defamatory as long as they include words like "Lively alleges" which they do.

Of course they did other reporting, including at looking through the pages of texts from Jonesworks, interviewing Lively, and requesting comment from the Wayfarer parties. But doing other reporting doesn't negate the fact that their reporting of the complaint itself cannot be considered defamation as long as accurately attributed. It's just any reporting on anything outside of the complaint itself would not get the same protection.

However, as the NYT details in their MTD, Wayfarer only alleges a single example of defamation outside of what is contained in the complaint and accurately reported as such -- the use of the term "smear campaign" in a video they made to accompany the article. And the NYT provides a different defense for this allegation. They say the term, which lacks a formal legal definition, was the opinion of the NYT reporters based on their reading of the PR text messages that describe their efforts to sway public opinion against Lively online.

And additionally they allege several other defenses and reasons to dismiss that cover both reports about the complaint and other reporting. It's a good MTD because it layers defenses so that even if the judge were to find that some defenses don't apply or apply only in part, there are others on which to rely. This is good lawyering.

[Anonymous]

The online article also has been edited to include statements made by FLAA and Freedman, “post publication”. It’s quite sketch. I remember the original article also mentioning that it was based on hours of interviews with a Blake Lively?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

Was this meant to show the nyt is going to lose its MTD? Because it shows the opposite—attributing all this to the legal complaint it describes

To the contrary, it is bolded because the the New York Times claims to have relied on documents beyond the complaint. There are not thousands of texts in the Complaint and the meaning of “these and other documents” is quite clear.

Of course they didn't solely rely on the complaint. They never claimed they did.

In the defamation case, they are saying that anything they reported about the contents of the complaint cannot be defamatory because they were reporting out the contents of a legal filing. Which is true. So all the details they include about what Lively alleges in the complaint cannot be considered defamatory as long as they include words like "Lively alleges" which they do.

Of course they did other reporting, including at looking through the pages of texts from Jonesworks, interviewing Lively, and requesting comment from the Wayfarer parties. But doing other reporting doesn't negate the fact that their reporting of the complaint itself cannot be considered defamation as long as accurately attributed. It's just any reporting on anything outside of the complaint itself would not get the same protection.

However, as the NYT details in their MTD, Wayfarer only alleges a single example of defamation outside of what is contained in the complaint and accurately reported as such -- the use of the term "smear campaign" in a video they made to accompany the article. And the NYT provides a different defense for this allegation. They say the term, which lacks a formal legal definition, was the opinion of the NYT reporters based on their reading of the PR text messages that describe their efforts to sway public opinion against Lively online.

And additionally they allege several other defenses and reasons to dismiss that cover both reports about the complaint and other reporting. It's a good MTD because it layers defenses so that even if the judge were to find that some defenses don't apply or apply only in part, there are others on which to rely. This is good lawyering.

I don’t see Lively alleges once in the first two paragraphs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The online article also has been edited to include statements made by FLAA and Freedman, “post publication”. It’s quite sketch. I remember the original article also mentioning that it was based on hours of interviews with a Blake Lively?

Not a question. The original article mentioned hours of interviews with Blake. I remember because only a week or two later the NY TImes released that weird podcast with Twomey where they tried to mention the complaint in every sentence. Anyway,mi am sure the Baldoni team has a copy of the article as it appeared in print.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

Was this meant to show the nyt is going to lose its MTD? Because it shows the opposite—attributing all this to the legal complaint it describes

To the contrary, it is bolded because the the New York Times claims to have relied on documents beyond the complaint. There are not thousands of texts in the Complaint and the meaning of “these and other documents” is quite clear.

Of course they didn't solely rely on the complaint. They never claimed they did.

In the defamation case, they are saying that anything they reported about the contents of the complaint cannot be defamatory because they were reporting out the contents of a legal filing. Which is true. So all the details they include about what Lively alleges in the complaint cannot be considered defamatory as long as they include words like "Lively alleges" which they do.

Of course they did other reporting, including at looking through the pages of texts from Jonesworks, interviewing Lively, and requesting comment from the Wayfarer parties. But doing other reporting doesn't negate the fact that their reporting of the complaint itself cannot be considered defamation as long as accurately attributed. It's just any reporting on anything outside of the complaint itself would not get the same protection.

However, as the NYT details in their MTD, Wayfarer only alleges a single example of defamation outside of what is contained in the complaint and accurately reported as such -- the use of the term "smear campaign" in a video they made to accompany the article. And the NYT provides a different defense for this allegation. They say the term, which lacks a formal legal definition, was the opinion of the NYT reporters based on their reading of the PR text messages that describe their efforts to sway public opinion against Lively online.

And additionally they allege several other defenses and reasons to dismiss that cover both reports about the complaint and other reporting. It's a good MTD because it layers defenses so that even if the judge were to find that some defenses don't apply or apply only in part, there are others on which to rely. This is good lawyering.

I don’t see Lively alleges once in the first two paragraphs.

That's because the details in the first few paragraphs could be confirmed independently via documentation. Lively provided to them the list of demands signed by Wayfarer, and they authenticated the document. That Baldoni hired a crisis PR firm is confirmed in detail in the Jonesworks texts, also authenticated. And then the content of some of those texts (again, confirmed) are also detailed.

Where is the lie? Did Wayfarer hire Melissa Nathan? Yes. Did Wayfarer, Abel, and Nathan work to push negative stories about Lively in the media and on social media? Yes. Did Lively lodge complaints about Baldoni's and Heath's behavior on set? Yes. Did Wayfarer agree to hire a full time IC prior to returning to set after the forced hiatus? Yes.

Please point me to the part where the defamation starts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

They come out with a bang, just being completely 100% factually wrong. They say they agreed to provide an intimacy coordinator. When we find out later, justin hired the intimacy coordinator during reproduction, texted Blake, I’m really excited about the intimacy coordinator I hired! And then proceeded to set up a meeting with her. To which Blake said, I’m good. I’ll wait till I get on set.

Did you gather any of that from this first paragraph or did it look like she had to beg them for an intimacy coordinator? I’m sorry the article was really bad and I understood why he’s suing, even if he doesn’t win. This has not been good for the New York Times even if they prevail legally, and frankly, this is not been good for Megan, and she has weakened her reputation and made it harder for future women who want to come forward.

None of what they write is factually wrong. Regarding the intimacy coordinator, it says they agreed to hire a full-time intimacy coordinator, not that they didn't have one at all before. Even though they had an IC hired before the hiatus, it's not clear that she'd spent a single day on set, be abuse none of the scheduled sex scenes had been filmed yet.

And Blake saying in preproduction she was fine to meet the IC on set doesn't negate the truth of that. It may add context, but that's what a subsequent article was for

Also, if you read the emails Twohey sent to Wayfarer prior to publishing, she includes a ton of detail for verification. Had they wanted to, at that time, they could have offered the context you are talking about. They chose not to -- they chose to offer a single, vague paragraph via Bryan Freedman denying everything entirely and with a bunch of angry invective about Blake. And they made no indication that they had more specific context or that they wanted to provide it. They didn't even say "look, these situations are complex and your reporting is inaccurate, but we need more time to explain how," which might have changed how they framed it. They chose not to.. The allegation that the story was unfairly one sided doesn't work for me because Wayfarer chose to claim up and issue a flat denial immediately. They didn't take their chance to provide another side until they filed their lawsuit, which was duly reported as well.

OK, except there’s no such thing as a full-time intimacy coordinator. They come on days when there are intimate scenes filmed. Do you really think an intimacy coordinator just hangs out on that all the time waiting in case they are needed? It’s just not how these things are done. The article and the complaint implied there was no intimacy coordinator until Blake complained. That was obviously proven to be false.

Blake's 17-point list, which was part of NYT reporting requested to have a full time intimacy coordinator on set to accompany Blake at all times. Because part of her allegation was that Baldoni and Heath added intimacy to scenes not scripted that way, this was needed to protect her. And Wayfarer agreed to provide this.

You can argue that was not necessary, but it's factually accurate. And no, it doesn't "imply" no IC had been hired at all. It just says that Blake requested and the studio agreed to provide a full time IC. Again, that is accurate.

Had Wayfarer wanted to clarify that they engaged an IC in preproduction, they could have done so when specifically asked prior to publication. They didn't. What do you want the NYT to do?

Implication was that there was no I see. All over the Internet people were like what there was no I see that standard now? They have only implied there wasn’t one in it was deceptive. You can argue all you want, but people were confided.

The fact that princess Blake needed an intimacy coordinator on set to protect her at all times is absolutely ludicrous. I actually think that is going to work against her as an unreasonable demand. That is in no way standard and I’ve never heard of any other actors asking for that.

I am waiting for them to come out and blame it on severe postpartum depression. Blake seemed incredibly paranoid and thought that every man on that set was out to get her.

Look, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this word salad is due to voice-to-text on your phone. Next time try typing it out.

The point is that the NYT requested comment from Wayfarer and outlined Lively's allegations and they chose not to say anything like "we hired an IC before production began." That's on them. The NYT can only report what it knows. They did their due diligence. Lively alleged harassment and requested a full time IC, and Wayfarer agreed to provide one. If Wayfarer had more info about the IC, they should have told the NYT when they asked. You can't decline to comment on a situation when you know a newspaper is about to report about it and then say "hey you didn't include additional context that we had access to but failed to provide even when you asked" and call it defamation.

Again, as I said before, legally, you may be right. But it was just not the right thing to do. For Harvey Weinstein, they were working on the story for years, and they had several conference calls with him over the course of months to get his side of the story. It didn’t end up helping him, but that’s how they treated it. I’m just confused as to why one actress coming forward led to them only getting her side. I know that she’s famous and she was willing to put her name out there, but one actress alleging a bad experience on set, when we all clearly saw the power that she had on the film, should have tipped then off that there was more to the story.

Look you saw what happened as well as I did. This article came out and for about 10 days around Christmas time Blake lively was having the upswing of her life. Everyone was on her side. Then 10 days later when Justin’s team was able to put out just a fraction of their side of the story, it was radio silence from Hollywood and all of her supporters. I just don’t understand if they started working on this in October, why they couldn’t have given his team more time. I actually still think it would’ve been a really groundbreaking and huge article with more nuance. And I think it probably would’ve helped Blake too, because she had the 10 days, but look at her now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

LOL! Just “the news” … choreographed and fed to us by millions of dollars worth of lawyers, talent managers, and PR. That wasn’t news, it was a multi-million dollar hit piece fed to a fame-seeking prostitute masquerading as a journalist. If The Times had any integrity that hack and editor should have been immediately fired. Go read the old Ben Rhodes piece where he shamelessly boasts how stupid and unethical most journalists are and how easy it is to get them to publish hit pieces and disinformation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The online article also has been edited to include statements made by FLAA and Freedman, “post publication”. It’s quite sketch. I remember the original article also mentioning that it was based on hours of interviews with a Blake Lively?

That's not even remotely sketch. It's normal for a paper to add statements made after publication and note that they were received post publication. The Freedman statement is especially ridiculous because he also made a pre-publications statement when Twohey reached out to all the Wayfarer parties for comment -- Freedman was well aware the article was being published and knew from the detailed emails Twohey sent his clients what the article would say. That Freedman then decided to append his prior statement is his prerogative but is not shady on the part of the Times.

Flaa wasn't contacted prior to publication but she is mentioned in the article. She issued a statement saying that she had not been in contact with Baldoni's people when she posted her video. Again, this is normal and standard. The article didn't accuse Flaa of anything and Flaa wasn't being sued. It just mentioned her video because that was a big part of the negative press for Lively in August.

Have y'all never read newspapers before or something? None of this is sketchy. It's just journalism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The online article also has been edited to include statements made by FLAA and Freedman, “post publication”. It’s quite sketch. I remember the original article also mentioning that it was based on hours of interviews with a Blake Lively?

That's not even remotely sketch. It's normal for a paper to add statements made after publication and note that they were received post publication. The Freedman statement is especially ridiculous because he also made a pre-publications statement when Twohey reached out to all the Wayfarer parties for comment -- Freedman was well aware the article was being published and knew from the detailed emails Twohey sent his clients what the article would say. That Freedman then decided to append his prior statement is his prerogative but is not shady on the part of the Times.

Flaa wasn't contacted prior to publication but she is mentioned in the article. She issued a statement saying that she had not been in contact with Baldoni's people when she posted her video. Again, this is normal and standard. The article didn't accuse Flaa of anything and Flaa wasn't being sued. It just mentioned her video because that was a big part of the negative press for Lively in August.

Have y'all never read newspapers before or something? None of this is sketchy. It's just journalism.

You don’t think it’s a problem that they said the Flaa video, the video that caused the most backlash against Blake, and went the most viral during the whole debacle, was part of the smear campaign, only to come out later and be like Oopsie. She wasn’t part of the campaign.

Because I definitely see that that is a problem I agree that it is journalism today, which is why the New York Times is hemorrhaging readers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The online article also has been edited to include statements made by FLAA and Freedman, “post publication”. It’s quite sketch. I remember the original article also mentioning that it was based on hours of interviews with a Blake Lively?

That's not even remotely sketch. It's normal for a paper to add statements made after publication and note that they were received post publication. The Freedman statement is especially ridiculous because he also made a pre-publications statement when Twohey reached out to all the Wayfarer parties for comment -- Freedman was well aware the article was being published and knew from the detailed emails Twohey sent his clients what the article would say. That Freedman then decided to append his prior statement is his prerogative but is not shady on the part of the Times.

Flaa wasn't contacted prior to publication but she is mentioned in the article. She issued a statement saying that she had not been in contact with Baldoni's people when she posted her video. Again, this is normal and standard. The article didn't accuse Flaa of anything and Flaa wasn't being sued. It just mentioned her video because that was a big part of the negative press for Lively in August.

Have y'all never read newspapers before or something? None of this is sketchy. It's just journalism.

I think it's both sketchy and standard, lol. And annoying af. These statements are in the NYT article:
"On Saturday, however, after this article was published, the talent agency William Morris Endeavor stopped representing Mr. Baldoni, said Ari Emanuel, chief executive of Endeavor, the agency’s parent company."
"After publication of this article, Ms. Flaa on Sunday contacted The Times and said she had not participated in any orchestrated effort to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation. "

They couldn't have been commenting on "this" article, because "this" article includes their statements, which obviously hadn't been submitted when the original article was published! So obviously, what I'm reading isn't THE article that they are suing for. This drives me insane, because what else did they quietly change? We saw this recently with The Hollywood Reporter and the Jenny Slate complaint. Back in the day, newspapers used to be publish the corrections at the bottom of the article and tell you exactly what they changed. All this article says is: "A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 23, 2024 of the New York edition with the headline: Alleged Effort To Strike Back At Star Actress."

There is a history here if anyone is interested to see the oldest archived version: https://archive.is/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:jesus people it was an article reporting on a legal filing, they don't need to litigate the case internally and take testimony from both sides and determine whether the plaintiff will win before reporting on it. how do you think news gets reported? they asked his view and they reported his denial. get over it. again times will win this MTD 100% as they should

When you are labeling someone a sexual harasser the bar needs to be higher. I agree with you that they will probably win legally, but I don’t think this helped the paper or corporate media and both aren’t doing so great right now.

I don't think they labelled him a sexual harasser. The response to the article was really more focused on the PR angle because of the texts. Even the article was mostly focused on the PR angle because, again, they had the texts. If someone read it and thought "well 100% the sexual harassment in the complaint happened exactly as described," that is a problem with a reader being overzealous, not with the the reporting. Because that's not what they said. Everything about the SH was was couched as an allegation. Only the PR activity in the texts was asserted as something that happened, because the texts were real.

The first few paragraphs of the article (emphasis mine)

Last summer, as the release of “It Ends With Us” approached, Justin Baldoni, the director and a star of the film, and Jamey Heath, the lead producer, hired a crisis public relations expert.

During shooting, Blake Lively, the co-star, had complained that the men had repeatedly violated physical boundaries and made sexual and other inappropriate comments to her. Their studio, Wayfarer, agreed to provide a full-time intimacy coordinator, bring in an outside producer and put other safeguards on set. In a side letter to Ms. Lively’s contract, signed by Mr. Heath, the studio also agreed not to retaliate against the actress.

But by August, the two men, who had positioned themselves as feminist allies in the #MeToo era, expressed fears that her allegations would become public and taint them, according to a legal complaint that she filed Friday. It claims that their P.R. effort had an explicit goal: to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation instead.

Her filing includes excerpts from thousands of pages of text messages and emails that she obtained through a subpoena. These and other documents were reviewed by The New York Times.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/21/business/media/blake-lively-justin-baldoni-it-ends-with-us.html

They come out with a bang, just being completely 100% factually wrong. They say they agreed to provide an intimacy coordinator. When we find out later, justin hired the intimacy coordinator during reproduction, texted Blake, I’m really excited about the intimacy coordinator I hired! And then proceeded to set up a meeting with her. To which Blake said, I’m good. I’ll wait till I get on set.

Did you gather any of that from this first paragraph or did it look like she had to beg them for an intimacy coordinator? I’m sorry the article was really bad and I understood why he’s suing, even if he doesn’t win. This has not been good for the New York Times even if they prevail legally, and frankly, this is not been good for Megan, and she has weakened her reputation and made it harder for future women who want to come forward.

None of what they write is factually wrong. Regarding the intimacy coordinator, it says they agreed to hire a full-time intimacy coordinator, not that they didn't have one at all before. Even though they had an IC hired before the hiatus, it's not clear that she'd spent a single day on set, be abuse none of the scheduled sex scenes had been filmed yet.

And Blake saying in preproduction she was fine to meet the IC on set doesn't negate the truth of that. It may add context, but that's what a subsequent article was for

Also, if you read the emails Twohey sent to Wayfarer prior to publishing, she includes a ton of detail for verification. Had they wanted to, at that time, they could have offered the context you are talking about. They chose not to -- they chose to offer a single, vague paragraph via Bryan Freedman denying everything entirely and with a bunch of angry invective about Blake. And they made no indication that they had more specific context or that they wanted to provide it. They didn't even say "look, these situations are complex and your reporting is inaccurate, but we need more time to explain how," which might have changed how they framed it. They chose not to.. The allegation that the story was unfairly one sided doesn't work for me because Wayfarer chose to claim up and issue a flat denial immediately. They didn't take their chance to provide another side until they filed their lawsuit, which was duly reported as well.

OK, except there’s no such thing as a full-time intimacy coordinator. They come on days when there are intimate scenes filmed. Do you really think an intimacy coordinator just hangs out on that all the time waiting in case they are needed? It’s just not how these things are done. The article and the complaint implied there was no intimacy coordinator until Blake complained. That was obviously proven to be false.

Blake's 17-point list, which was part of NYT reporting requested to have a full time intimacy coordinator on set to accompany Blake at all times. Because part of her allegation was that Baldoni and Heath added intimacy to scenes not scripted that way, this was needed to protect her. And Wayfarer agreed to provide this.

You can argue that was not necessary, but it's factually accurate. And no, it doesn't "imply" no IC had been hired at all. It just says that Blake requested and the studio agreed to provide a full time IC. Again, that is accurate.

Had Wayfarer wanted to clarify that they engaged an IC in preproduction, they could have done so when specifically asked prior to publication. They didn't. What do you want the NYT to do?

Implication was that there was no I see. All over the Internet people were like what there was no I see that standard now? They have only implied there wasn’t one in it was deceptive. You can argue all you want, but people were confided.

The fact that princess Blake needed an intimacy coordinator on set to protect her at all times is absolutely ludicrous. I actually think that is going to work against her as an unreasonable demand. That is in no way standard and I’ve never heard of any other actors asking for that.

I am waiting for them to come out and blame it on severe postpartum depression. Blake seemed incredibly paranoid and thought that every man on that set was out to get her.

Look, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume this word salad is due to voice-to-text on your phone. Next time try typing it out.

The point is that the NYT requested comment from Wayfarer and outlined Lively's allegations and they chose not to say anything like "we hired an IC before production began." That's on them. The NYT can only report what it knows. They did their due diligence. Lively alleged harassment and requested a full time IC, and Wayfarer agreed to provide one. If Wayfarer had more info about the IC, they should have told the NYT when they asked. You can't decline to comment on a situation when you know a newspaper is about to report about it and then say "hey you didn't include additional context that we had access to but failed to provide even when you asked" and call it defamation.

Again, as I said before, legally, you may be right. But it was just not the right thing to do. For Harvey Weinstein, they were working on the story for years, and they had several conference calls with him over the course of months to get his side of the story. It didn’t end up helping him, but that’s how they treated it. I’m just confused as to why one actress coming forward led to them only getting her side. I know that she’s famous and she was willing to put her name out there, but one actress alleging a bad experience on set, when we all clearly saw the power that she had on the film, should have tipped then off that there was more to the story.

Look you saw what happened as well as I did. This article came out and for about 10 days around Christmas time Blake lively was having the upswing of her life. Everyone was on her side. Then 10 days later when Justin’s team was able to put out just a fraction of their side of the story, it was radio silence from Hollywood and all of her supporters. I just don’t understand if they started working on this in October, why they couldn’t have given his team more time. I actually still think it would’ve been a really groundbreaking and huge article with more nuance. And I think it probably would’ve helped Blake too, because she had the 10 days, but look at her now.

The Weinstein comparison doesn't hold up. People only make this comparison because of Twohey. Weinstein took a long time to report because none of the women wanted to go on the record. They had to wait until there were enough women making allegations that they could convince them to come forward together -- no one wanted to be the lone accuser. Lively was not only willing to go on the record, she was filing a lawsuit. So they didn't have to wait around like they did with Weinstein. Also due to the lawsuit, they couldn't wait to publish because once the lawsuit was published, they'd have lost the story.

Also, they didn't interview Weinstein multiple times over the course of months. I believe they had one or maybe two conference calls with him prior to publication, and they absolutely waited to initiate those calls until the rest of the story was pinned down. This is standard practice. You don't give an accused days or weeks or months to spin up a cover story. You get all your details nailed and then you present them to the accused for comment prior to publication. You give them enough time to comment fully but not enough time to (1) leak it in advance to another outlet they think will be more favorable, or (2) invent a cover story.

Freedman DID leak the story to TMZ before NYT could publish, actually. Even with the short lead time, he still managed to leak the complaint to another outlet between the time NYT asked for comment and when the published. Newspapers know people will play these games and you have to time requests for comment to protect your story so that the time you spent reporting doesn't get lost.