It’s unsettling to find that you’ve been lied to. As realization dawns, emotions range from confusion, to shame at having been bamboozled, to anger.
Millions of Americans — particularly those who follow celebrity news and not politics — are feeling this way about the media right now, after a holiday break spent tracking the battle between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni.
The “Gell-Mann amnesia effect” describes the tendency we all have to notice errors in news stories about topics we know well, yet to assume trustworthiness when reading articles on topics outside our expertise.
Here’s an example: If you’re a sports fan, you’ll notice it if a writer in your local newspaper doesn’t know the difference between a touchdown and a home run. You’ll realize that the writer (and the editor) have no idea what they’re talking about.
But you’ll likely drop that realization moments later when you turn to the financial pages or to international news, and trust that same paper’s coverage of topics you know less well.
Millions of Americans are suffering from the Gell-Mann amnesia effect when it comes to entertainment coverage — and the Lively-Baldoni fracas is making them feel they’ve been had.
When “It Ends With Us,” the domestic violence drama in which the two co-starred, came out in August, social media chatter about Lively turned negative seemingly overnight.
The former “Gossip Girl” star was said to be a bully, a diva, difficult on set.
But just before Christmas, Lively filed a bombshell sexual-harassment lawsuit against Baldoni — and her complaint was bolstered by a lengthy, sympathetic New York Times exposé reporting that much of the narrative against her had been planted by Baldoni and his hired PR guns.
The story described how publicists shape news coverage over lunches with reporters and dossiers of juicy tidbits.
It included text exchanges between two publicists working for Baldoni that appeared to show them scheming to plant negative stories about Lively.
In one thread given special prominence, the two seemed to celebrate a Daily Mail article that criticized Lively for her “tone-deaf” promotion of “It Ends” and its domestic violence theme.
One of the most damning texts read, “You really outdid yourself with this piece,” to which the other publicist replied, “That’s why you hired me right? I’m the best.”
The Times’ presentation visually highlighted these texts, formatting them to look like screenshots, with a small note underneath: “Messages have been edited for length.”
But on New Year’s Eve, another twist emerged: Baldoni and 10 associates filed a $250 million defamation lawsuit against the Times in Los Angeles Superior Court: The suit alleges that reporters cherry-picked their evidence, removing context from the seemingly damning texts.
The complete texts reveal the publicists were “jokingly taking credit for a story that emerged organically,” Variety reported — and that Times reporters left out emojis and other comments that weakened their anti-Baldoni narrative.
The story has so many wrinkles, it’s starting to look more like a bulldog’s face every day.
Millions of Americans have been riveted by the stars’ he said/she said claims, the scandalous Times story and the dueling lawsuits. But there’s an important lesson they may glean from the saga.
This case should be a teachable moment for people who don’t follow the news more deeply than the headlines.
Every bit of this situation, from the social-media rumors in August, to the Times’ reporting, to the revelations about that reporting exposed in Baldoni’s lawsuit, seems to have been manipulated — by someone with an axe to grind.
Not just in entertainment coverage, but in political and news reporting, too, this is how the sausage is made.
In the media world, there is constant pressure, manipulation, and sometimes outright deceit on the part of those involved.
Everyone has an agenda, even reporters and editors.
Most Americans, maintaining their Gell-Mann amnesia and consuming the news in snippets and clicks, don’t know they should do so with a critical eye.
But if they’re paying attention to the ugly Lively-Baldoni saga, now they do — or at least, they should.
Americans who only pay attention to the gossip pages have seen the industry’s man behind the curtain. And there’s no unseeing it.
Bethany Mandel is co-author of “Stolen Youth” and a homeschooling mother of six in greater Washington, DC.