If you’re reading this, you probably are already familiar with the Baldoni vs. Lively feud, which started with Blake Lively suing Justin Baldoni, his PR team, public relations specialist Melissa Nathan, and Wayfarer Studios for sexual harassment, among a million other things. On the surface level, it sounds like a Hollywood drama that you don’t need to add to your already piling list of work to-dos, parenthood to-dos, and life to-dos, but it means more than you think in a #FakeNews and #MeToo world.
However, these lawsuits are bound to change media laws regarding fact-checking and impact the way Public Relations agencies handle crisis communications and internal communications with clients in the future.
Here are some ways I see these lawsuits affecting our industry:
Disclaimer: My opinion is reflected throughout this blog post. I understand there is no way to know the truth unless we were right there witnessing the interactions between Lively and Baldoni. As witnesses are called, more news will come out, and I expect these lawsuits to take years to resolve. My only goal with this post is to share some lessons and exciting, hopeful developments in laws and changes in how media reports will emerge from these lawsuits.
Requires Transparency
The moment Lively quoted all of Baldon’s text in her lawsuit, Baldoni followed up with another $400 million lawsuit that provided the media with FULL transparency to his text messages, even if something in them would worsen the situation. Instead, the transparency exposed Lively more, as the full-context messages showed that the snippets Lively pulled didn’t mean what she claimed they did in her lawsuit.
The transparent text messages also provide a further look into Lively’s demonic handling of the situation, especially when she seems to threaten Baldon with her “monsters” and “dragons,” which include superstar Taylor Swift.
When advising clients during a crisis PR situation, I always tell them to be as transparent as possible. Even if they are wrong, transparency builds trust within their community and has an often overlooked impact on forgiveness. When you are transparent, you tell the world you have nothing to hide.
Holds Media Accountable
Baldoni’s Dec 31 lawsuit against the New York Times is one of the most exciting pieces of Lively’s initial suit. Many have noted that the highly esteemed and trusted NYT has fallen into the #FakeNews trap over the past few years.
Baldoni blatantly calls out the NYT for its biased, nonfactual breaking story of Lively’s initial suit. He backs it up with those transparent text messages and other proof he has in his arsenal. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall when such an esteemed publication was publicly thrust into the #FakeNews light.
The laws that could result from this lawsuit are limitless. One possible law would require the media to fact-check and label pieces such as the NYT’s one-sided report on the initial lawsuit as “opinion pieces.”
At the very least, Baldoni’s lawsuit against the NYT will scare media across the country into thinking twice about what they publish—which is DESPERATELY needed in a #FakeNews world. The NYT will have difficulty maintaining trust once this lawsuit shakes out. I am sure the NYT wanted to participate in real-time breaking news, but they only published a non-fact-checked piece that went viral across digital media.
Exposes a Dark Side to the #MeToo World
As women, we have all been exposed to a #MeToo moment at least once, if not multiple times, in our lives. During the widespread # MeToo movement, we had the opportunity to share those moments, and some of us have chosen to continue sharing those stories long after the moment has passed.
While I support the #MeToo movement 100 percent (what women couldn’t?!), I did take issue with some women towards the end of its big popular moment taking advantage of the movement to gain pity and high monetary gains.
I witnessed a few moments when colleagues exaggerated a work exchange I saw to gain a raise, sympathy among other colleagues, or a promotion within their office. Unfortunately, this is the dark underbelly of the #MeToo movement. With every movement, there is the undeniably good. Then, a tiny percentage of people see an opportunity to fulfill their lack of self-worth by spinning the movement to fit a story in their life that they can leverage.
Enter Blake Lively. I can only imagine the look on her face when she realized a small potato like Baldoni dared to countersue her. Woah. I am 100 percent sure that Lively never expected Baldoni to fight against the powerhouse Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively.
Lively expected to gain sympathy that would override her continuously tarnished reputation, which would not have been a bad move if there had not been videos of her misconduct and if Baldoni had not let her squish him like the tiny pea he is in her world.
To say this PR strategy backfired is an understatement. Instead, it goes against all the positive light created during the #MeToo movement. It embarrasses women around the country who have been sexually harassed and assaulted on the job.
Blake Lively’s team must create a crisis communication strategy and implement a crisis communication plan.
Holds PR Teams Accountable
One positive aspect of Lively’s original lawsuit is that it exposes Baldon’s PR team and public relations specialist, Melissa Nathan, allegedly holding them accountable for a smear campaign that should have been held more tightly to the chest. You may wonder why I am backing Baldoni while applauding Lively’s lawsuit for aggressively exposing his PR team.
It’s simple. Even though the texts were later proven to be taken out of context and did not have the meaning Lively claimed they did, they were texts sent between Baldoni and his PR team. Client and agency texts can constantly be exposed to the public. This should already be at the top of PR firms’ minds, but it is often overlooked as crisis communications come into play and everyone’s emotions are heightened.
I am guilty of sending and receiving texts that do not positively portray my clients or their competitors. We all have our days when we need to rant to someone, but we need to take a deep breath before we respond to a crisis. Effective crisis communication means pausing before responding. Lively’s suit makes PR teams think twice about what they write and how they communicate their strategies.
I want to know where the Public Relations Society of America stands on this issue.
Shifts Power Dynamics
Unless you are anti-media, you probably know how popular Blake Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, are in the Hollywood community and worldwide. Reynolds isn’t shy about boasting about his fame in his offshoot project, Welcome to Wrexham.
During the whole reality show, he offloads his responsibility onto his partner, Rob McElhenney, claiming he has ‘other things to do,’ which is true. Lively tormented her costar, Leighton Meester, on Gossip Girl, claiming she was the most popular actress.
This duo is one POWER house. Their financial and general public popularity status alone is enough to shy away a little (sorry, but in perspective, it’s true) Baldoni. Reading through Baldoni’s lawsuit documents, they weren’t afraid to use this power while working on Baldoni’s (yes, It Ends With Us is Baldoni’s film, as he brought it to light and directed it) project.
If I were Baldoni, I would not have the courage to challenge such a powerful team. I applaud him for shifting the power dynamics through his transparency—yes, there’s that word again. Simply by providing access to his life, Baldoni was able to turn the tables on who has the power in this fight.
Lively and Reynolds have the glitz and glam, but Baldoni has the truth and is not afraid to share it. His texts expose a diva who is not afraid to pull in her famous Taylor Swife-size friends to fight her fight for her.
Validates ‘Don’t Judge A Book By Its Cover’
Public opinion immediately sided with Lively. From celebrities to politicians to everyday people, social media initially burst with support for Lively. I recently polled my friends about this Lively vs. Baldoni debacle. While more than half did not care about this suit (which I encouraged them to, especially those in the communications/PR industry), they were split dead on who supported Lively vs. Baldoni.
If I had polled them before Baldoni’s countersuit and transparent text messages, they would have been 100 percent Baldoni. I ranted with many of them when the suit first came out, and they thought I was batsh*t crazy for choosing Baldoni.
I also polled my X community when Baldoni filed his countersuit against Lively, which exposed more information pro-Baldoni, in which 100% of my community sided with Baldoni. The sudden support for Baldoni shocked me based on conversations I had with my entire community before Baldoni responded to Lively.
Rethinks Crisis Response Communications
We already discussed the exposure of client/agency texts. Still, Baldoni’s team’s alleged crisis response strategy raises another issue: how we approach crisis response in a fully online/screen-capturing media world.
First, let’s rethink security measures taken in public relations firms, starting with implementing encrypted text messaging and emails. Working with high-security clients, I have a few areas where I am already using encrypted communication tools. Lively vs. Baldoni makes me want to expand where I use encrypted tools because I never imagined using them for more public-facing vanilla clients.
While encrypted communication goes against my transparency crisis communications recommendation, public relations is strategic at its core. Many of these strategies must be kept secret so that competitors do not steal and use them to their advantage.
When a crisis pops up, The first recommendation for clients is to breathe and sit with the crisis for a moment. Yes, real-time response is vital, but so is not emotional responding, which can fuel the fire. Some of the text messages between Melissa Nathan and Baldoni are full of undealt emotions rather than rational strategic recommendations. I always run crisis response by a few of my family members and friends before I allow a client to go forward so I can gain a scrappy focus group’s input and ensure that neither my nor my client’s emotions are coming through.
Sometimes, a crisis response strategy is necessary even for the best thought-out crisis response strategy. The public is a loose cannon and can go any way with crisis responses. Baldoni’s original exposed crisis response is in need of a crisis response itself. His two lawsuits definitely have crisis response written all over them. There is no doubt his PR team was heavily involved in what would be written in the public-facing lawsuits. Sometimes, PR teams must reach beyond their scope, especially during a crisis, and become useful wherever possible.
What’s surprising is Lively’s lack of a PR crisis response by her team, which is needed right now. Why did she piecemeal texts to make herself look better? How can she justify her suit after more texts have come to light? Her PR team is clearly advising her to stay silent and out of the spotlight, like not attending the recent Golden Globes. Her PR team likely recommended that she proactively put out a statement that it has nothing to do with the lawsuit and more to do with Reynolds deciding not to go, in conjunction with his co-star, Hugh Jackman. You can guess which reason is more likely as to why the couple did not attend the highly-publicized event.
Many diehard Lively fans now realize they judged a situation without the full picture. Even blogs that first claimed Lively was a #MeToo queen for suing Baldoni are being rewritten. Whoops.
As I mentioned initially, my opinion infiltrates most of this piece. We will never honestly know what happened between Baldoni and Lively, but we can glean important PR and crisis communication lessons from the current lawsuits.
My text message interactions with clients have a different tone, and I am already reminding clients that transparency always wins in crisis communications.
As these lawsuits progress, I look forward to learning even more about how to improve the media, crisis communications, and PR worlds.
Stay tuned.
-Marji J. Sherman
