Mark Meadows being sued by his publisher for lying in his book

[mikeymikec]

No - but again I guess I’m not seeing what the issue is here. Meadows signed a contract where he said everything in his book was true to the best of his knowledge and then testified to the contrary under oath. Seems open and shut to me.

I don't know about you but if I commissioned someone to complete a piece of work that I considered my reputation to be riding on, I would do what I could to double-check their work, to not do so would be negligence on my part to protect my company's reputation. My alternative is that I could sue them for screwing it up but I'd be toasting my own reputation in the process for employing someone who clearly was not capable of completing the work, because I'd be clearly demonstrating my incompetence.

It's not as if we're talking about hiring a specialist to complete a piece of work that I'm not capable of fully double-checking their work either. While I would not trust someone with a severe mental disability to double-check this guy's work, pretty much anyone else who hasn't been smoking a conservative propaganda crack pipe would have raised a red flag and the company lawyers should have been going through the rest with a fine tooth-comb if there was actually a concern about how it might affect the publishing company.

They even said that they conducted appropriate due diligence AND received repeated assurances from the author. So what due diligence did they conduct? Evidently none. IMO, they are negligent. The author is too, obviously, and deserves to be sued, but the company's "professional reputation" sounds like it ought to be rightly shredded and at this point IMO it would make more sense for them not to draw attention to that particular point of their argument if they want to continue being in the publishing business.

Having said all of this, the average conservative that reads this sort of drivel probably would not notice anything amiss in any case. IMO it's a publicity stunt.

 

[fskimospy]

I don't know about you but if I commissioned someone to complete a piece of work that I considered my reputation to be riding on, I would do what I could to double-check their work, to not do so would be negligence on my part to protect my company's reputation. My alternative is that I could sue them for screwing it up but I'd be toasting my own reputation in the process for employing someone who clearly was not capable of completing the work, because I'd be clearly demonstrating my incompetence.

It's not as if we're talking about hiring a specialist to complete a piece of work that I'm not capable of fully double-checking their work either. While I would not trust someone with a severe mental disability to double-check this guy's work, pretty much anyone else who hasn't been smoking a conservative propaganda crack pipe would have raised a red flag and the company lawyers should have been going through the rest with a fine tooth-comb if there was actually a concern about how it might affect the publishing company.

They even said that they conducted appropriate due diligence AND received repeated assurances from the author. So what due diligence did they conduct? Evidently none. IMO, they are negligent. The author is too, obviously, and deserves to be sued, but the company's "professional reputation" sounds like it ought to be rightly shredded and at this point IMO it would make more sense for them not to draw attention to that particular point of their argument if they want to continue being in the publishing business.

Having said all of this, the average conservative that reads this sort of drivel probably would not notice anything amiss in any case. IMO it's a publicity stunt.

It might be bad business practice but that doesn’t change Meadows’ contractual obligations.

 

[zinfamous]

It might be bad business practice but that doesn’t change Meadows’ contractual obligations.

yes, but what are those obligations?

They sold x copies, made xxxx monies off of those copies.

Book contracts are usually for advance $$$ + material + deadline, and obligations for sales numbers, public appearances, and points off of sales. etc. It's all very much financial.

I'd be pretty surprised if the actual legal contract contained any sort of obligation for actual truth in this sort of book. I think the publisher knew they were selling lies, and this lawsuit against Meadows will likely go nowhere (I mean, if what I said is true then it will immediately get tossed, but I'm just guessing).

This type of publisher isn't in the business to sell legitimate biography of any reputational standard. They are in the business to sell viral entertainment, flat out. And they know it. But yeah, I haven't seen the contract or anything, but they would have to have some serious shit-tier lawyers to make sure that author obligations towards truth wouldn't really hurt them in the end.


I think if anything, it's really on the readers--if they feel offended which, I imagine 98% of them would not because they will believe all those lies regardless of anything, to hold any real financial accountability here. Like what happened with James Fry--there really isn't an "honest legal" obligation to hold people to their stories when it comes to Memoir or whatever...other than the act of getting too popular, and too important to way too many people, and to upset some very specific crowds (e.g.: the Oprah Empire ) to suffer any actual repercussions of lying in any kind of memoir/autobiography world. It just doesn't happen otherwise, and if like....the only person to have really suffered from "lying to the public" in such a book is James Fucking Fry, then I'm sure this will just roll of Meadow's back and these propagandists' press rolls.

I mean, just consider the type of fans that would ever consider purchasing one of those books, lol. Think they give a fuck if they are being lied to? lol.

 

[fskimospy]

yes, but what are those obligations?

They sold x copies, made xxxx monies off of those copies.

Book contracts are usually for advance $$$ + material + deadline, and obligations for sales numbers, public appearances, and points off of sales. etc. It's all very much financial.

I'd be pretty surprised if the actual legal contract contained any sort of obligation for actual truth in this sort of book. I think the publisher knew they were selling lies, and this lawsuit against Meadows will likely go nowhere (I mean, if what I said is true then it will immediately get tossed, but I'm just guessing).

This type of publisher isn't in the business to sell legitimate biography of any reputational standard. They are in the business to sell viral entertainment, flat out. And they know it. But yeah, I haven't seen the contract or anything, but they would have to have some serious shit-tier lawyers to make sure that author obligations towards truth wouldn't really hurt them in the end.


I think if anything, it's really on the readers--if they feel offended which, I imagine 98% of them would not because they will believe all those lies regardless of anything, to hold any real financial accountability here. Like what happened with James Fry--there really isn't an "honest legal" obligation to hold people to their stories when it comes to Memoir or whatever...other than the act of getting too popular, and too important to way too many people, and to upset some very specific crowds (e.g.: the Oprah Empire ) to suffer any actual repercussions of lying in any kind of memoir/autobiography world. It just doesn't happen otherwise, and if like....the only person to have really suffered from "lying to the public" in such a book is James Fucking Fry, then I'm sure this will just roll of Meadow's back and these propagandists' press rolls.

I mean, just consider the type of fans that would ever consider purchasing one of those books, lol. Think they give a fuck if they are being lied to? lol.

It didn’t have any requirement for ACTUAL truth, it had a requirement for Meadows to tell the truth as he understood it.

Assuming the reporting about his testimony is accurate he’s screwed.