What is Happening in Defamation? – From Blake Lively to The Queen’s Gambit

Kim Masters is a partner at Puck and host of KCRW’s The Business. The former editor-at-large of The Hollywood Reporter and correspondent for NPR, she has also served as a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, TIME and Esquire, and was a staff reporter for The Washington Post. She is the author of The Keys to the Kingdom: The Rise of Michael Eisner and the Fall of Everybody Else, and co-author (with Nancy Griffin) of Hit & Run: How Jon Peters and Peter Guber Took Sony for a Ride in Hollywood. Masters was named Entertainment Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club in 2001 and Print Journalist of the Year by the Los Angeles Press Club in 2012. The Business received Gracie Awards for Outstanding Talk Show in 2012 and 2014. In 2018, the Greater Los Angeles Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists gave Masters its Distinguished Journalist Award.

Ross Johnson founded JPR in 2008 and is its CEO. Prior to the formation of JPR, Mr. Johnson was the head of the strategic communications arm at PMK-BNC, then the world’s largest entertainment public relations firm. Mr. Johnson was also previously an executive with Sitrick and Company, a leading crisis communications firm. A former contract writer for the New York Times, New York magazine, Esquire and Los Angeles magazine, Mr. Johnson was an executive editor at the Hollywood Reporter. His service packages in Los Angeles magazine, “Best Trial Lawyers in L.A.” and “Raging Bulls: L.A.’s Meanest Lawyers” were nominated for Los Angeles Press Club Awards. Mr Johnson is a member of the Public Relations Society of America and the Los Angeles Press Club.

Alexander is an Oxford University graduate who began his career as a barrister in England in 1982. He moved to Los Angeles and was admitted to the California bar in 1988. He is a litigator with an emphasis on media, entertainment and business disputes. Many of his cases have international dimensions. He co-founded Rufus-Isaacs, Acland & Grantham in 2010. He is President-Elect of the Beverly Hills Bar Association, has been selected as a Super Lawyer for 2017-2022 by Southern California Super Lawyer Magazine, Lawyer of the Year for Copyright in 2023 in LA by Best Lawyers, and has been honored as a media litigator by numerous international law and business organizations

Neville L. Johnson is Senior Partner at Johnson & Johnson. Neville L. Johnson graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of California, Berkeley (1971). He received his law degree from Southwestern Law School (1975), graduating near the top of his class. He has tried over 28 civil jury trials and over 70 civil trials and arbitrations without a jury. He is a member of the invitation-only American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA) and is on the Board of Governors of the Consumer Attorneys of Los Angeles (CAALA since 2005), the Board of Directors of the national organization Public Justice, and on the Board of Governors of the Beverly Hills Bar Association 2013-2015 and 2020-2022 (BHBA). Johnson is a long-time member of the invitation-only Los Angeles Copyright Society, and on the Board of The California Society of Entertainment Lawyers.