Donna Ballman

Why the heck can’t TV shows get mediation right? I mean, if a comedy like The Wedding Crashers can do it, why not courtroom dramas? Fairly Legal has made a mockery of what mediation is about, but I expect USA shows to be silly. Now comes The Good Wife, and I usually expect better from them. I’m a mediator, and this kind of error hurts my feelings because the writers clearly don’t give a hoot about getting mediation right. Mediation is suddenly popular with writers, so why won’t they find out what really happens in a mediation session?

Getting it wrong

Here’s just some of the stuff I keep hearing on TV about mediation that’s glaringly stupid.

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I covered the suit filed against former President Jimmy Carter and Simon & Schuster regarding Carter’s 2006 book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid a couple weeks ago on The Debriefer. Literary agent Peter Cox and I spoke about the dangers to writers and the publishing industry if the case succeeds. The more I think about this case, the more it bothers me, so it bears more analysis.

The suit is by some readers who claim they bought the book and felt it was full of inaccuracies. They sued for breach of contract, unjust enrichment, negligent misrepresentation , intentional misrepresentation and consumer protection act violations. The argument they make is that the publisher and author advertised the book as nonfiction. They claim they were misled into buying the book based on this false representation.

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