Pub nixes book
Is trial next Masters chapter?
Not to worry: "The Trial: Episode II" may be taking shape.
Vanity Fair contributing editor Kim Masters, one of the gaggle of journalists who have been covering the Katzenberg trial, may be taking on publishing giant Bertelsmann.
It started last week when Broadway Books, an imprint of the German conglomerate's Random House, decided against publishing the book about Disney that it had contracted from Masters.
The Masters matter revolves around a big bag of money: namely, her $700,000 advance on the book, half of which the company has already paid. Random House wants the money back, calling the book unacceptable.
Warts-and-all work
The publisher contends that it had contracted for a ground-breaking, no-holds-barred, warts-and-all work of investigative journalism about Disney, and that the manuscript Masters turned in was nowhere near that.
Masters wants to keep the money she was given -- and receive the rest of the $700,000.
The gist of her case is that there is nothing wrong with the quality of her book and that Broadway Books did not reject it in good faith. Her side will contend that the Disney book will represent yet another case of the Mouse House exerting its influence to squash detractors. Her attorneys will contend that Disney was in bed with parent company Bertelsmann over several business dealings and that Broadway Books had praised the book in both inhouse and promotional material.
The Masters team has what it considers a smoking gun: a phone call that Disney chief of corporate operations Sanford Litvak placed to Random House general counsel Harriette Dorsen in September that it claims set the wheels in motion to get the book dropped. A rep for Random House says the conversation did take place and, after some friendly lawyerly chit-chat, the discussion of Masters' manuscript went down something like this:
"So Harriet," Litvak said, "I hope you're going to put that Masters manuscript through a vigorous legal review."
"Sandy," she responded, "we put all our manuscripts through vigorous legal reviews."
"I just hope it's as vigorous as the one you put the Eisner book through," he said, referring to Michael Eisner's autobiography "Work in Progress," which Random House had just published.
They both had a good chuckle and that was apparently that. The rep said no one from Disney has contacted anyone at Random House about the Masters book since. But this seemingly banal conversation could well be exhibit A in a potential Masters court battle.
Battle Fields
Masters has hired Hollywood attorney Burt Fields to handle her case. He just happens to be repping Jeffrey Katzenberg in his case against Disney and Eisner.
The Katzenberg trial will conceivably represent a chapter of the book, which is now under consideration at William Morrow & Co., and Fields will undoubtedly play a key role in Masters' trial coverage for Vanity Fair.
"How can she pretend to be an objective reporter when she is in business with someone who has an obvious opinion on the case?" asked a specialist in libel law. "I won't have to pick up a copy of Vanity Fair to know what her opinion of the trial will be."
