MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Any time there is news, watch out for someone trying to put their own spin on it. Take, for example, the recent news surrounding actors Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively. They are the stars of "It Ends With Us," which Baldoni also directed. A New York Times report has alleged that Baldoni engaged in a smear campaign against Lively during the film's press tour last summer, stating that she was, among other things, difficult to work with. Lively has since filed a lawsuit alleging that Baldoni behaved inappropriately onset and that he mounted a PR smear campaign against her after she complained. Baldoni, through his representatives, has denied any wrongdoing. He is now suing the Times over their reporting.
As the fallout from the scandal continues into the new year, our colleague Andrew Limbong wanted to know, what does all this say about how Hollywood spins a crisis these days? So he asked Molly McPherson. She's an expert in public relations and crisis communication. She is not connected to either side in this dispute. Here she is describing what was going on at the time of the movie's release.
MOLLY MCPHERSON: What made Baldoni's PR campaign so effective at the time was he was receiving a little bit of help from Blake Lively, the costar herself. So what we saw at the time of the movie release wasn't just the PR efforts from Baldoni's PR team. It was also mixed in with some interviews and some video content of Blake Lively not looking her best. So in a way, she almost fueled her own negative PR campaign waged against her.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: You know, during the height of the #MeToo movement, I remember Baldoni painted himself as, like, a good male feminist, you know, an ally for women. Did that shape how he was perceived during the rollout of the movie?
MCPHERSON: Absolutely. It gave him somewhat of a credential to say that he is a man who looks out for women in Hollywood, which is important timing wise, coming out of cancel culture. You know, people are looking for these white hat examples of men who are looking out to support women. That was also perhaps part of the campaign, you know, to make him look more favorable and certainly helped him, I think, and his team do a lot of damage to Blake Lively.
LIMBONG: Is - was this sort of alleged, you know, smear campaign par for the course in crisis management PR, or is this just making headlines because of these texts that we saw from Baldoni's team?
MCPHERSON: Very astute question - because yes, this has been going on for years, and with social media, particularly TikTok, where we have content that is longer, it's video, and we have the public's commentary - reputations are boosted, but they're also destroyed so quickly by public opinion. So a lot of publicists nowadays are using the public as their arm, you know, to help them in their campaigns. You have all these people on TikTok just waiting to chime in. So it's a rich, fertile ground to shape public opinion. But this is the first time that I think it's been exposed.
LIMBONG: Yeah. You know, how does the job change now that we're in this new era?
MCPHERSON: The job of a publicist nowadays is to not only navigate the press relations, the media relations, but also the public relations via social media. But some publicists, maybe less ethical publicists, might use or deploy different types of PR tactics that involve transactional tactics like purchasing bots, boosting certain posts, paying people to say certain things. It's become a little bit dirtier in terms of warfare as far as reputation goes. But as more of these tactics play out, I think the public is becoming more suspect when they see these type of reputation campaigns. A lot has happened since Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. And a lot of the accusations there were around bots and Twitter and hashtags. Well, now it's no longer Twitter, and a lot of these conversations are happening on TikTok. And it's very hard to shape public opinion on TikTok. But that's why I think more publicists are trying to find artificial means to shape reputations.
LIMBONG: If I'm watching a TikTok that is talking trash about a celebrity, how do I know that that person isn't just a paid actor on behalf of a different celebrity?
MCPHERSON: TikTok thrives on content creators who have strong followings, and with strong followings many times comes just authentic thought. A lot of content creators out there are just known for their specific takes. So if you're hearing something negative from someone who has a particular expertise or someone who is interested, let's say, in the film industry or entertainment in general, their words are going to have a lot more weight as opposed to someone out of the blue, all of a sudden trashing someone negatively. But I will say, looking at this Lively-Baldoni case, as we wade through it, the press has one opinion on what's happening, but if you still look at the comments, there are a lot of people online who very honestly are saying, I don't believe either side. I don't think either side looks good in this. And what's being lost - there are some very serious charges about a very toxic workplace, and we don't want to lose that in the conversation.
LIMBONG: On that note, like, in general, as an avid consumer of media, how can I identify red flags in a story about celebrities, right? Like, what would you say are the key things to be looking out for when news breaks about someone to better discern if there's, like, something bigger at play?
MCPHERSON: You want to look for the authentic conversation. Is there a bias? Do they represent two sides? Start to become more suspect of the conversation when there's a lot of hearsay involved, when there's a lot of opinion involved. Look for the hate. Look for the trolling. Look for more emotion without any evidence to support it.
LIMBONG: You know, someone listening to this might say, oh, the best way to not get duped by celeb gossip is to just not follow it at all, right? But how do these skills you're telling us apply outside of reading page six or whatever?
MCPHERSON: This is what I tell people all the time. Public relations and PR spin is not just for celebrities. It's for everyone. It's professional, but it's also in your real life. People spin each other all the time. It happens online. It happens on dating apps. It happens in families. It's the tactic and the motivations behind the tactics. It all comes down to human behavior. Celebrities are just like anyone else - or publicists. They want to use any type of spin to get what they want and shape perception.
LIMBONG: That's Molly McPherson, a crisis PR manager and author of "Indestructible: Reclaim Control And Respond With Confidence In A Media Crisis." Molly, thanks so much.
MCPHERSON: Thanks, Andrew.
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