Media outlets back Trump author, seek to overturn ruling

The Associated Press is reporting that a number of media outlets are behind a move to have a judge’s ruling overturned that would require a New York Times business journalist who wrote a book about Donald Trump to overturn confidential sources.

The AP story stated, “Trump won the ruling from the state judge handling his lawsuit against the author and publisher of TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, which claims that the book knowingly understated the celebrity businessman’s wealth.

“In a brief filed May 24 with a state appellate court, the media asserted that the ruling by Superior Court Judge Irvin J. Snyder ‘erroneously holds that the style or tone of a work controls the amount of protection it receives, and it requires judges to make subjective decisions about style in deciding how much protection a work should receive.

“‘The First Amendment has long required ‘news’ to be defined broadly to include material of public interest, such as TrumpNation, regardless of its tone or format.'”

Read more here. The author of the book is Timothy O’Brien, who edits the Sunday business section at the Times.