misinformation and why the news must be free
Over the past 24 hours or so a shitshow unfolded over on ONTD about a celebrity called Blake Lively who i have no idea who it is but actually the individual isn't what makes the story interesting.
I am sure some people wonder why i read ONTD, a low-brow celebrity gossip community, when i am not involved in fandom, and i don't watch movies, and i don't care about the personal lives of rich people, and bla bla bla. This kind of story is the reason why, because celebrity gossip is a fascinating microcosm of how society works. It's a low-stakes way to witness propaganda in full effect, and you can draw lessons from that.
So, the quick summary is that Blake Lively recently filed a civil suit alleging sexual harassment by a director who she worked with on a film last year. You would think this is pretty cut and dried - men are trash, of course he sexually harassed her, and probably a bunch of other people, hashtag metoo, next! But instead the reaction was that she was filing some frivolous lawsuit to rehab her image after her shallow personality leaked out during the media tour for the film. Like, what?
Well, up until a few days ago, the narrative was that Justin Maldoni - male director (and costar) of the movie - was a Real Feminist, a man who was thoughtfully addressing the issue of domestic violence in his Very Serious Film, and Blake Lively was a vapid celeb who didn't give a shit about the themes, who was more interested shilling her side-hustle and bringing up her relationship with husband Ryan Reynolds (another actor) than seriously engaging with other women. Or something. Basically, the internet decided to hate her because she was a rich, out-of-touch celeb saying rich, out-of-touch stuff.
Except now it turns out that despite the fact Lively was a rich, out-of-touch celeb, the hatred was not organic. Because after the initial report on this lawsuit dropped on TMZ, and ONTD reacted with skepticism, the New York Times published a longer article that opens up some of the evidence presented in the case, which makes it clear that not only are her claims founded, but also that the director's PR team went out of their way to tarnish her reputation in an attempt to influence public opinion ahead of any potential lawsuit coming to light.
To wit: text messages from Maldoni's PR team show the women (!) expressing astonishment at how successful their smear campaign was, and just how ready people on social media were to unload their vitriol on another woman. And, to be clear, Lively really does appear to have said some insensitive shit, although to me all ignorant rich people blur together so i can't really say if she is better or worse than anyone else on that front. The point is that instead of the media investigating stories of conflict on set (stemming from what we now know to be a man sexually harassing his coworkers), they piled onto a woman being awkward and evasive during interviews about said film. Because that's what the man's PR team wanted the story to be, so that's what it became.
Just think about all of those times when women in politics have had their policy messages undercut by narratives that they laugh too much, or that they don't wear appropriate clothing, or that their accent is fake, or that they don't respond to interviewers in the right tone, or that they're robots, or that they just aren't "relatable". Meanwhile a male politician and actual out-of-touch celeb can be a sexual predator and still get elevated to the highest office in the land. Think of all the money and effort that goes into influencing politics. All it took was a gentle nudge from a PR firm to amplify criticism of a female celeb in a way that constructed a months-long narrative about her shitty personality, drowning out any commentary on her male coworker's.
But my interest in this story isn't just about how easy it is to construct narratives, although that's definitely worthy of note. It's also about the media, because once again we are in a situation where paywalls are doing the work of the devil.
The most poignant thing about this shitshow is that initial reporting on the suit came out on TMZ, a trashy gossip website with no paywall, so anyone could read it. But then follow-up reporting came out on NYT, a so-called respectable newspaper with a paywall, so only people with an account could read it. TMZ represented the suit as another shot in a lengthy personal feud between Lively and Baldoni, stoking the skeptical narrative that this is/was self-serving. I don't know how NYT reported it BECAUSE I CAN'T READ THEIR FUCKING WEBSITE. So all i know is what ONTD and other sites are able to pull out of NYT under some kind of "fair use". I think i know what the story is, but do i really?
It's still too early to say which narrative is going to be the driving one as this drama unfolds, but i can say right now that putting serious reporting behind a paywall clearly isn't the most effective way to get a message across. When as a reporter your chosen outlet actively blocks people from reading your work, when it encourages out-of-context quoting, how is that good for democracy, media literacy and the free press? Spoiler: it's fucking not. When disinformation merchants are more than happy to blast their stuff out for free, all you are doing by hiding your deep dives behind a paywall is reinforcing populist tropes that the NYT is an elite, out-of-touch institution, and not a medium of the common man like outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch.
So there it is. I wanted to do a Friday Five catchup, or a year end meme, or some other fun journal post to tell y'all about my life which right now involves shivering at home in my house because it's fucking freezing outside and i am burnt out from work and i just don't want to do anything... But instead i am writing about celebrities who i don't even know who they are. If that isn't a sign of the times, i don't even know. America elected a fucking celebrity to be their president. Twice. What the fuck.
I am sure some people wonder why i read ONTD, a low-brow celebrity gossip community, when i am not involved in fandom, and i don't watch movies, and i don't care about the personal lives of rich people, and bla bla bla. This kind of story is the reason why, because celebrity gossip is a fascinating microcosm of how society works. It's a low-stakes way to witness propaganda in full effect, and you can draw lessons from that.
So, the quick summary is that Blake Lively recently filed a civil suit alleging sexual harassment by a director who she worked with on a film last year. You would think this is pretty cut and dried - men are trash, of course he sexually harassed her, and probably a bunch of other people, hashtag metoo, next! But instead the reaction was that she was filing some frivolous lawsuit to rehab her image after her shallow personality leaked out during the media tour for the film. Like, what?
Well, up until a few days ago, the narrative was that Justin Maldoni - male director (and costar) of the movie - was a Real Feminist, a man who was thoughtfully addressing the issue of domestic violence in his Very Serious Film, and Blake Lively was a vapid celeb who didn't give a shit about the themes, who was more interested shilling her side-hustle and bringing up her relationship with husband Ryan Reynolds (another actor) than seriously engaging with other women. Or something. Basically, the internet decided to hate her because she was a rich, out-of-touch celeb saying rich, out-of-touch stuff.
Except now it turns out that despite the fact Lively was a rich, out-of-touch celeb, the hatred was not organic. Because after the initial report on this lawsuit dropped on TMZ, and ONTD reacted with skepticism, the New York Times published a longer article that opens up some of the evidence presented in the case, which makes it clear that not only are her claims founded, but also that the director's PR team went out of their way to tarnish her reputation in an attempt to influence public opinion ahead of any potential lawsuit coming to light.
To wit: text messages from Maldoni's PR team show the women (!) expressing astonishment at how successful their smear campaign was, and just how ready people on social media were to unload their vitriol on another woman. And, to be clear, Lively really does appear to have said some insensitive shit, although to me all ignorant rich people blur together so i can't really say if she is better or worse than anyone else on that front. The point is that instead of the media investigating stories of conflict on set (stemming from what we now know to be a man sexually harassing his coworkers), they piled onto a woman being awkward and evasive during interviews about said film. Because that's what the man's PR team wanted the story to be, so that's what it became.
Just think about all of those times when women in politics have had their policy messages undercut by narratives that they laugh too much, or that they don't wear appropriate clothing, or that their accent is fake, or that they don't respond to interviewers in the right tone, or that they're robots, or that they just aren't "relatable". Meanwhile a male politician and actual out-of-touch celeb can be a sexual predator and still get elevated to the highest office in the land. Think of all the money and effort that goes into influencing politics. All it took was a gentle nudge from a PR firm to amplify criticism of a female celeb in a way that constructed a months-long narrative about her shitty personality, drowning out any commentary on her male coworker's.
But my interest in this story isn't just about how easy it is to construct narratives, although that's definitely worthy of note. It's also about the media, because once again we are in a situation where paywalls are doing the work of the devil.
The most poignant thing about this shitshow is that initial reporting on the suit came out on TMZ, a trashy gossip website with no paywall, so anyone could read it. But then follow-up reporting came out on NYT, a so-called respectable newspaper with a paywall, so only people with an account could read it. TMZ represented the suit as another shot in a lengthy personal feud between Lively and Baldoni, stoking the skeptical narrative that this is/was self-serving. I don't know how NYT reported it BECAUSE I CAN'T READ THEIR FUCKING WEBSITE. So all i know is what ONTD and other sites are able to pull out of NYT under some kind of "fair use". I think i know what the story is, but do i really?
It's still too early to say which narrative is going to be the driving one as this drama unfolds, but i can say right now that putting serious reporting behind a paywall clearly isn't the most effective way to get a message across. When as a reporter your chosen outlet actively blocks people from reading your work, when it encourages out-of-context quoting, how is that good for democracy, media literacy and the free press? Spoiler: it's fucking not. When disinformation merchants are more than happy to blast their stuff out for free, all you are doing by hiding your deep dives behind a paywall is reinforcing populist tropes that the NYT is an elite, out-of-touch institution, and not a medium of the common man like outlets owned by Rupert Murdoch.
So there it is. I wanted to do a Friday Five catchup, or a year end meme, or some other fun journal post to tell y'all about my life which right now involves shivering at home in my house because it's fucking freezing outside and i am burnt out from work and i just don't want to do anything... But instead i am writing about celebrities who i don't even know who they are. If that isn't a sign of the times, i don't even know. America elected a fucking celebrity to be their president. Twice. What the fuck.