Don Lemon Says Justin Baldoni New York Times Lawsuit Should Spark Change

TMZ

For Don Lemon, the most interesting part of the Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni beef is Justin's defamation lawsuit against the New York Times ... and he hopes it sparks change.

Transcript

00:00Blake and Baldoni, this has been, I mean, the new year is off to a crazy start, so a

00:09lot of people are saying, okay, this could be the end of Justin Baldoni, or this could

00:14also be the end of the way people do business with Blake, you know, people are clearly choosing

00:18sides.

00:19Okay, let me say this, as someone who's an east coast person, I was not paying attention

00:23to this story, well, until I got to California, until I got to LA, and everybody's talking

00:29about it, so I think it's, you know, they say no publicity is bad publicity, or all

00:33publicity is good publicity, I don't think in this case it's that.

00:36I think it will probably damage them, because who's going to want to work with that if it's

00:39going to, it may overshadow what's happening in whatever production they're doing.

00:43But, for me, the interest is, now they're suing the New York Times, which is a legitimate

00:48news organization, and for defamation and all of that, I have long thought, and people

00:53aren't going to like this, I'm sure, that we should revisit New York Times versus Sullivan,

00:57but I believe that it gives, especially in this new media time, it gives people too much,

01:03where there are no editorial constraints or standards, it gives people too much leeway

01:08in writing whatever they want about someone who's a public figure, whether it's true or

01:12not, because they know the standards are so high that you can never sue, and they know

01:17that for, if anyone who has any sort of public platform, the moment they respond to something

01:22that's even a lie, they give that more energy and that much more fire.

01:27So usually people just shut up and they don't say anything, even if it's not true.

01:31And I think, you know, hey, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, go.

01:37I would love to be able to do that with some of the organizations that have written things

01:40about me that aren't true.

01:41So that's where my interest lies in that story, and I want to see how it plays out for the

01:45New York Times and journalism as a whole.

01:47So you're saying that they were maybe wrong?

01:50I don't know, I don't know if they were wrong or not, but...

01:52Right, maybe it was too far.

01:54Yes, but I think that maybe it was too far to know what was written.

01:57But I think people should be careful about what they're writing and it has to be true

02:00and 100% true, and if not, I think people who do have public platforms, who are celebrities,

02:07should be able to take legal action, and I don't think the standards should be so high

02:10if someone printed a lie.

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