The public’s rush to side with the accused Justin Baldoni and discredit Blake Lively as a result of biased media coverage demonstrates the problem with the media influencing court trials.
In August of 2024, the long-awaited film adaption of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling novel It Ends with Us was released in theaters. The film stars Blake Lively as Lily Bloom and follows her story as she struggles to decide between neurosurgeon Ryle, played by Justin Baldoni, and her first-love Atlas, played by Brandon Sklenar.
Despite prior controversies about the novel and film’s marketing being seen as making light about domestic violence, in addition to the many surrounding Colleen Hoover herself, and a “mean girl” interview from Blake Lively, the film was a box office success.
Yet the film’s financial success would be overshadowed when it was reported that Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against her co-star and director Justin Baldoni for sexual harassment, defamation, retaliation and more after months of news detailing a feud between the two.
Lively alleged in the suit that Baldoni was “[improvising] physical intimacy” and “[adding] nudity and graphic scenes that weren’t in the original script.” Lively additionally claimed that Baldoni and his PR team planned a “retaliation campaign” against the actress to ensure public opinion would be in his favor.
And clearly, Baldoni’s alleged campaign to slander Lively has been tremendously successful.
Despite there being ever-increasingly mounting evidence providing Lively’s claims with merit—including a six minute voicemail sent by Baldoni to Lively at 2:AM, a video of him admitting to violating women’s consent in his teens and early 20s and two other actress prepared to testify against him, according to Lively, many publications, public figures and people across social media appear to be on Baldoni’s side.
The public’s immediate choice to disparage the former Gossip Girl actress demonstrates the dangers of allowing news to be biased and why it should not be allowed to easily influence court trials of any and every kind.
One of the most precarious consequences of this issue is the ever-increasing inability to get a fair trial. When people, especially a jury, have been engaging with media that is biased for or against a person or conflict, it becomes far more challenging to ensure that the people taking part in the process that will determine the outcome are unbiased and do not have a verdict already determined in their mind.
This is already becoming a serious issue with the ongoing case against Luigi Mangione, a man accused of assassinating former United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Many news publications reporting on crime have been called out online for their biased and unfair coverage of him, pointing out that there is still little to no evidence of him being connected to the crime.
Another, more troubling consequence is the long-lasting ramifications this type of media campaign has against women and victims of assault.
Many have drawn comparisons of Lively’s treatment by the general public to how badly Amber Heard was slandered by the media when dealing with a defamation trial against her ex-husband Johnny Depp.
Part of living in a world where we can receive and disseminate news within a matter of minutes means that we must be more critical of what we read online. We need to ask ourselves questions, verify sources and what isn’t true, because whether intentional or not, rushing to believe one reality without any critical thought can be the deciding factor as to whether or not someone is guilty in the court of public opinion and the law.
