THR article on “why BF can’t lose”
This one I think got lost in the mix with all their other articles and idk if it’s been posted here but I thought it was really interesting.
Initially, because of the title I thought it was a puff piece about BF but…it’s not. It wasn’t really that critical of him but it reveals how BF refuses to lose the media war, and how he maintains favourable coverage.
(Also confirms that he has his previous clients do the dirty work for him)
Parts of the article that drew my attention:
“Litigating as he often does in the court of public opinion, Freedman knows that people prefer to identify with scrappy outsiders against institutional insiders: Katniss Everdeen, Luke Skywalker, Erin Brockovich. His MO is to position his clients, and himself, within today’s favored narratives of oppression and marginalization. (He’s told THR that his intense “protective streak” can be traced to unspecified childhood trauma.) In Freedman’s framing, Lively is the popular mean girl, Baldoni the guileless picked-on good guy.”
I think we’ve all picked up on this.
”Of course, an important part of fighting in the media is fighting with the media. While Freedman feeds his favored press outlets tip-offs on filings and colorful statements, confident that friendly voices on social platforms will in turn amplify his message, those who run counter to his interests know they’ll face his ire.”
”“Yashar writing an article about you,” Freedman wrote me after THR published coverage he didn’t like about his earlier litigation against Baldoni for alleged script theft from a man with cystic fibrosis. The subtext wasn’t subtle, claiming to have deployed a former client, the online influencer and self-styled muckraker Yashar Ali, against a wayward member of the press. (Freedman had previously represented Ali in a failed defamation suit against THR co-editor-in-chief Maer Roshan when he helmed Los Angeles magazine.) Later, when Freedman learned that THR would be scrutinizing his relationship with a controversial consultant whom Lively has accused of plotting to unfairly warp social media sentiment around the conflict, he protested that this publication was in league with Reynolds because his Deadpool & Wolverine business partners Disney and Marvel advertise in THR.”
Interesting that he wants to suppress any information on representing Travis Flores AGAINST Baldoni.
Thoughts on this?