The Fight For Truth

Star Magazine, through Britney Spears' ex Jason Alexander, made the outrageous claim this week that Jason Trawick, her current boyfriend, beat her.  In an interview with the magazine, Alexander said he spoke to Britney and she told him Trawick beat her and blackened her eye.
Not surprisingly, Britney's team, her manager Larry Rudolph and one of her conservators, Andrew Wallet, quickly defended Trawick, calling the accusations, and the alleged audio tape of Britney talking to Alexander, "so fake as to be laughable."
Star Magazine has chosen to stick by its story, even though 1) Britney's team is suing and 2) Britney's team confirmed they denied the story when the magazine first inquired of its validity.  Star, according to reports, will attempt to dig up dirt on Trawick to prove the story's merit.
How what he did in the past proves the believability of these current allegations is yet to be determined (though it could be surmised that if they uncover a past filled with abuse claims and allegations it would surely lend more credence to Star's story).
What Star can't do, however, is go back and remove the audio tapes purporting to be of conversations between Alexander and Spears that have since been determined to be fake by audio experts.  One even reported the tape being so distorted, it was impossible to tell whose voice that was.
Clearly, Star Magazine seems to be grasping at straws.  Alexander has become such an untrustworthy source of information, they have chosen to remove him from the equation and instead find other people who will share some dirt on Trawick's past.  That is, if there is dirt to be shared.
No doubt more stories and outlandish claims will be made.  But at what cost?
Looking at message boards, there seems to be some amount of people who buy into the magazine's claims of abuse.  Whether that is due to the story seeming plausible to them or because these people just happen to believe tabloids in general is unknown.  What is known is the damage these kinds of allegations could due to the life and career of Spears' beau.
Imagine if Spears and her boyfriend separate in the near future (quite the possibility, not every relationships lasts forever).  That would just lend more credence to the abuse claims.  Or image if pictures surface showing the two of them in a heated argument.  Again, more evidence that Trawick is, in fact, abusive.
Obviously, Star Magazine is banking on uncovering (or making up) enough evidence to support their claims and, thus, fight off any potential lawsuit.  But besides the cost to Trawick, there may be a heavy cost handed down to the magazine.
It has not been revealed at this time how much the Spears' team plans to sue for.  They may want millions of dollars or just a simple retraction. Regardless, this cannot be a fight Star Magazine wants.  Even if some amount of public opinion is on its side, the magazine can't possibly expect to win a court battle when its slandered Trawick's name so voraciously.
Many times magazines make up ridiculous stories and allegations: about pregnancy, marriage, divorce, and the like.  This story, though, centers on criminal activity.  Assault and battery, what Trawick is accused of committing, is a criminal offense.  It is a serious matter that Star Magazine handled irresponsibly (once it was told by Spears' team that the allegations were untrue, the magazine should have put the story aside if and until it could produce more than one source; a source which had an axe to grind, as Alexander had been removed from Spears' life by her parents and legal team after the twosomes 55-hour marriage).
Ironically, almost all tabloid stories about the pop star show her in a negative light: she's on drugs, she's a bad parent, she hates her children, etc., while this particular story paints her as the wounded victim.  Traditionally she's the victim of shoddy reporting and lies, but for once, at least according to Star Magazine and Alexander, she's another kind of victim.  No one seems to realize that irony in a situation where the girl who usually ends up on magazine covers for doing bad things is now, allegedly, on these magazine cover because bad things are being done to her.
To dismiss this story as complete trash would be natural, but the idea of violence happening to celebrities is not a foreign concept.  Remember, it wasn't that long ago the picture of a bruised and beaten Rihanna surfaced.  She had been assaulted by her then boyfriend Chris Brown.  Therefore, it is not entirely out of the question that someone, someday could perpetrate a heinous criminal act against Spears.
It just doesn't seem like this is that time.