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Mary Trump's Book

Minoosh said:
I had heard that name mentioned before, at about the time the book came out. I'm not sure it was in the book, but it was being tossed around.
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This is from the book:

Unfortunately, even though Maryanne had been doing his
homework for him, she couldn’t take his tests, and Donald worried that his
grade point average, which put him far from the top of his class, would
scuttle his efforts to get accepted. To hedge his bets he enlisted Joe
Shapiro, a smart kid with a reputation for being a good test taker, to take
his SATs for him. That was much easier to pull off in the days before photo
IDs and computerized records. Donald, who never lacked for funds, paid
his buddy well. Not leaving anything to chance, he also asked Freddy to
speak with James Nolan, a friend from St. Paul’s, who happened to work in
Penn’s admissions office. Maybe Nolan would be willing to put in a good
word for Freddy’s little brother.
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Remember there are 15 hours of tapes. I suspect there is more info there than we are aware of so far.
 
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The distinction between journalism and non-fiction not-journalism is important, but ultimately misleading. If Mary Trump reports something in her memoir that is defamatory and false, she could be held liable just as any journalist who did the same. Being a journalist does not provide any kind of special protection. It’s a professional title that usually indicates someone graduated from a journalism program and was taught journalistic style, professionalism and ethics.

So no, Mary Trump is not a journalist, but that doesn’t help her much if she reports something defamatory and false.
 
xjx388 said:
The distinction between journalism and non-fiction not-journalism is important, but ultimately misleading. If Mary Trump reports something in her memoir that is defamatory and false, she could be held liable just as any journalist who did the same. Being a journalist does not provide any kind of special protection. It’s a professional title that usually indicates someone graduated from a journalism program and was taught journalistic style, professionalism and ethics.

So no, Mary Trump is not a journalist, but that doesn’t help her much if she reports something defamatory and false.
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I don't think she's in trouble from Trump - it may be actually impossible to defame him - but there might be a few irate Joe Schapiros out there. Trump probably thinks it makes him look smart.
 
Trump would have to prove he didn't cheat on his SAT and he probably can't prove that. The personal accounts of things in the family, seems like those would be pretty hard to contest.

I don't think she has much to worry about.
 
Minoosh said:
I don't think she's in trouble from Trump - it may be actually impossible to defame him - but there might be a few irate Joe Schapiros out there. Trump probably thinks it makes him look smart.
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To win a libel or defamation case against a public figure, you have to prove 1/ that the claim was in fact false; 2/ that the speaker/writer knew or should have known it was false; 3/ that the speaker/writer acted with malice to injure the plaintiff's reputation; and 4/ that the plaintiff actually suffered quantifiable injury to his/her reputation.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-simple-29718.html

Could anybody or anything really damage Trump's reputation? Most people already know what he is, and his cultists wouldn't believe it.
 
Bob001 said:
To win a libel or defamation case against a public figure, you have to prove 1/ that the claim was in fact false; 2/ that the speaker/writer knew or should have known it was false; 3/ that the speaker/writer acted with malice to injure the plaintiff's reputation; and 4/ that the plaintiff actually suffered quantifiable injury to his/her reputation.
https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/defamation-law-made-simple-29718.html

Could anybody or anything really damage Trump's reputation? Most people already know what he is, and his cultists wouldn't believe it.
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That's the thing - how can you defame someone who has so thoroughly dragged his own name through the mud? Did he cheat to get into Penn? I don't know, but it would have been perfectly in character given so much of what is already known about him. Even he probably couldn't say what the truth is at this point. A judge could always rule that his reputation has been trashed, but since it wasn't worth a nickel to begin with, the damages would be limited.
 
Several off topic posts moved to AAH.

The topic of the thread is Mary Trump's book. It is not Trump himself (there are plenty of threads to discuss that), though of course anything about him connected to the book is fine. It is also not about the definition of words; please do not get bogged down in Clintonesque “It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is." discussions.

Thank you.
Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: zooterkin
 
Minoosh said:
Claiming (implying?) that Trump cheated is in a way less problematic than tossing out the name "Joe Schapiro."

There are numerous red flags about the statement ... who corrected the "one year" at Fordham to "two years"? "SATS or whatever" emphasizes that he's not sure of the exact entrance exam. The fact that this is what Barry allegedly told Mary as reported in the Post - too many layers. But mostly ... that was more than 50 years ago. I've had my memory proven faulty too many times to try to reproduce a conversation from decades ago. I'll be sure a certain book ends with a well-remembered line ... only to reread the book and realize I'd remembered wrong. As Barry himself seems to hint ... "That's what I believe."

Even so, journalistically you could probably claim to cover your bases just by asking Trump if it's true and recording his response or non-response. But the "Joe Schapiro" part? There really are guys named Joe Schapiro, and you've just accused one of them of serious fraud. And what if it was really "John Schapira," or some other plausible deviation?

Those things stuck in memory that you are sure are true ... are often inaccurate. Even if it's true in broad outline, you can undermine your own credibility by getting some detail wrong.
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It is a bit of a bummer how quickly you were able to move from "numerous" red flags to saying you could get away with it by turning it into she-said-he-denied. But I guess that is the system.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
Trump would have to prove he didn't cheat on his SAT and he probably can't prove that. The personal accounts of things in the family, seems like those would be pretty hard to contest.

I don't think she has much to worry about.
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I agree. Actually suing for defamation would be futile. It would be hard to argue that, 50 years later, this claim about the SAT in her book is actually defamatory in the first place and false to boot. Plus, he's a public figure, so he has to show Mary Trump had actual malice. Like you said, reporting old stories from the family in a memoir is not likely to be demonstrably false and it's probably not an element of actual malice on Mary Trump's part.

But the larger point remains: writers of memoirs are no different from journalists when it comes to liability.
 
BobTheCoward said:
It is a bit of a bummer how quickly you were able to move from "numerous" red flags to saying you could get away with it by turning it into she-said-he-denied. But I guess that is the system.
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The way I was raised you always give the subject a chance to respond, which I think I would have done anyway because the "he said, she said" drives me kind of nuts.
 
That post didn't come out right. You give the subject a chance to respond - even if you're covering a prosector's opening statement in a murder trial, you also give the defense a chance to comment. So even though "he said, she said" drives me nuts, there is a principle I'm defending. You can't always get to the bottom of things, and IMO the press should try to do that more often. It can't always be done. The SAT anecdote was of marginal value, and trying to chase it down to firm up details was probably not feasible. I think I would have argued for leaving that anecdote out.

ETA: And the denial can be an interesting part of the story. Some subjects will actually confirm it, which is a nice bonus. The Trump White House just started ignoring many press queries.
 
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xjx388 said:
...

But the larger point remains: writers of memoirs are no different from journalists when it comes to liability.
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This is not true, different standards apply. But to discuss the difference is off-topic. You can look it up.
 
More audio recordings have been released with conversations between Mary Trump and her aunt.

In the latest, Ivanka was called "mini-trump" and Eric trump a moron.

I like the strategy here... Release the recordings in small pieces over time... Keeps it in the media and hopefully takes attention away from any positive Trump news.

https://www.businessinsider.com/tru...-as-mini-donald-in-new-audio-recording-2020-8

Sent from my LM-X320 using Tapatalk
 
Maryanne certainly seems to dislike Donald and his children. And it's completely understandable. They're all just disgusting and despicable.
 
LOL! What a pile. Faked voice? Give me a break. It's legal in NY to tape someone as long as one person, in this case Mary, gives consent. A federal judge would know that. That alone gives it away as a fake account.
 
TahiniBinShawarma said:
Seems Donald isn't the only one who Mary Trump has to worry about.

https://twitter.com/MaryanneTBarry

It's not a verified account, but she is followed by John H Sununu
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Joined in August 2020. Only posts seem to be pro-trump or anti-mary. Makes idle threat about suing.

I would say the account is as fake as a $3 bill.

Sent from my LM-X320 using Tapatalk
 
TahiniBinShawarma said:
https://twitter.com/MaryanneTBarry/status/1300122182920663043

https://twitter.com/MaryanneTBarry/status/1299771119965294593

https://twitter.com/MaryanneTBarry/status/1300133411219214336

https://twitter.com/MaryanneTBarry/status/1300204569948024833

https://twitter.com/MaryanneTBarry/status/1300135056405561344
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So...did Mary Trump use/alter her voice without her consent (for which she's apparently being sued), or did she hire a voice actor to pretend to be Barry?

Incidentally, isn't it funny how she tweets exactly like her brother? Same grammar, same random capitalisation, same habit of interrupting herself mid-sentence in brackets, same turns of phrase ("Fake tapes!", "she will be sued BIG LEAGUE", "should've", "big house", "Too bad!", etc.), same Obama-bashing, same bashing of black women...all in, so far, 12 tweets. Strange. You can't explain that, because it's obviously genuinely Maryanne Trump Barry tweeting. Who else could it possibly be? It's got her name at the top after all, and how much more evidence could possibly be required before believing it wholeheartedly?

"Always believe everything you read on the internet" - Abraham Lincoln, 1721, Kosovo.
 
Not to pile on, if it would have been something like @realMaryanneTrumpBarry then it would be totally legit.
 
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