New York Times denies bias against conservative authors

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From Fox News:

The New York Times leadership denied allegations of bias against conservative authors among the paper’s prestigious Best Sellers list when publicly confronted at the paper’s 2018 Annual Meeting of Stockholders at The New York Times Building on Thursday morning.

Attorney Justin Danhof, a conservative shareholder advocate, told Fox News that he confronted Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and his son, publisher A.G. Sulzberger, directly over what he called a lack of transparency regarding the paper’s Best Sellers list – which is often the industry standard for whether or not a book is regarded as a success.

“The motto of one of your primary competitors, the Jeff Bezos-owned Washington Post, is ‘Democracy Dies in Darkness.’ When it comes to this company’s best-seller list, it’s truth and process that are dying in the darkness,” Danhof said he read from a pre-written question after identifying himself as general counsel at the National Center for Public Policy Research.

Danhof says he accused the Times of refusing to explain its policies for selecting best-sellers and issuing simple, blanket statements when called out for bias against conservative authors. He says he offered several examples of conservative authors and publishing companies who have been left off or dropped down the prestigious best-seller list.

. . . .

“Without revealing anything proprietary, will you commit to an independent audit of your policies for selecting best-sellers to evaluate whether the political biases of the selectors have influenced the process? And will you make those findings public?” Danhof told Fox News he asked.

. . . .

“NYT’s best-seller lists are based on a detailed analysis of book sales from a wide range of retailers in locations across the U.S. Each week we provide our readers the best assessment of what books are the most broadly popular at that time.”

Link to the rest at Fox News and thanks to Felix for the tip.

21 thoughts on “New York Times denies bias against conservative authors”

    • No, the catfight is about titles that are selling and selling well as documented by Amazon rankings (and publisher revenue).

      That’s what’s notable about the dispute: the meddling kids in Amazon’s purple van are pointing out that the books in questions are selling better than the NYT reports.

      Remember, back in 2012, when it came out that B&N was downlisting indie romance titles to keep them out of the first page of their rankings? Same thing.

      These are tradpubbed books and since Amazon sells about half of all trade books its sales ranking are a better reflection of the market than what a couple of Manhattan shops might report.

      • One wonders if the NYT calling the list a list of BestSellers couldn’t be litigated as false advertising.

    • I would suspect that the list is based on sales from stores in largely liberal metropolitan areas; thereby artificially influencing the make-up of the bestseller list based on the tastes of readers concentrated in those areas rather than reflecting the tastes of readers across a wider range of geographies and, thus, opinions. (You know how “flyover” country gets ignored, where the conservatives tend to live.)

    • Alicia,

      If you had written a non fiction book, and it was currently No. 2 in nonfiction on the Wall Street Journal best-seller list; No. 2 on the Publishers Weekly nonfiction best-seller list; No. 1 on Ingram, the largest book wholesaler in the country; and, according to Nielsen BookScan, the organization that tracks 75 to 85 percent of book sales, No. 2 in hardcover nonfiction, where on the NY Times list do you think you book should be?

      What if, according to BookScan, your book outsold 14 of the 15 books on the New York Times hardcover nonfiction best-seller list, where on the best seller list do you think your book should rank?

  1. The NYT has a history of manipulating its lists. Remember when the Harry Potter books dominated the list, so the NYT created a YA list just so those horrible, unsophisticated books didn’t show up on the main list? And now they expect us to believe they’re not up to no good again? Yeah. My memory’s short but not that short.

  2. I suspect the Times uses quality control considerations when putting together their lists, as opposed to just sales numbers. As a matter of fact they say that. Some of the books in question are frankly, crap. Yes, I know crap sells.

    • In other words, they’re lying when they say the books on their list are the ones that are selling the best – but that’s OK because you have 100% perfect trust in their taste and agree with them that they choose the books that should be selling the best.

      By making excuses for them, you concede the point. But thanks for playing.

  3. Yeah, tonight the illusion I destroyed was my husband’s belief in the NYT bestseller list. He’s a pretty good stand in for Everyman for me re: publishing.

  4. As mentioned above, maybe they are ignoring conservative areas but I think he issue might be slightly different.

    Amazon might be serving more rural conservative areas that have no big, or maybe any, bookstores that a newspaper would contact for sales figures.

    • Same argument, no?
      Rural areas are part of the market and if their methodology ignores them the methodology is at fault.

      Note that the activist was asking for a non-proprietary audit. He wanted to document the bias, not explain it. He has his own agenda: delegitimize the delegitimizers.

      The real issue is that the NYT and WP are local papers focused on their home markets and have never developed the sensitivity or skills needed to properly deal with the real-world diversity of a continent-wide society. They are products of hothouse cultures that rarely concern themselves with the world beyond their black boxes. Stuff comes in, stuff goes out; how and why is unimportant.

      Yet they still preen and posture as if their attitudes and values are universally correct and unchallenable and everybody else is wrong.

      “The paper of record.” “Democracy dies in darkness.” The sheer conceit behind their mottoes is just stunning.

      About time somebody called them out, even if it’s just on a relatively trivial matter.

      • Not entirely the same, more that they can’t capture the data from that market even if they want to.

        A lack of big box stores leads to either Amazon, small chains, or mom and pop stores in those rural areas being the sellers. How many of those small chains or mom and pop stores are willing, or able, to share their sales data with the NYT?

        The problems would exist even if a conservative paper tried to cover those areas with a bestseller list.

        • Come on!
          Where do most of the mom and pop independent bookstores get their books? Ingram.

          And Ingram reports their sales regularly.
          And then there is bookscan which captures a good chunk of the market.

          The data can be had.
          They just choose not to report it; they’d rather cook it.

          • Ingram doesn’t track point of sale data that I knew of, just stock ordered. I’m not familiar enough with BookScan though to comment.

            I’m not defending their biases. Just pointing out that actual data(not estimates) from conservative rural America is likely hard for anyone to get. If the NYT put in effort they could likely get more, the question for me is how much do they even try?

  5. never read the ‘best seller’ lists anymore as of about 20 years ago. Why? Tho occasionally might buy a ‘bestseller’,there are many books I dig that would not appeal to oprah audience. Non fic esp.

    PW, Lib Jour, NYt, USA and B&N and books a million [or less] have their lists which is fine, but since one can buy bulk sales to make a pol statement on a BS list, I just would rather peruse the piles whether in store, online or at library [ I feel rich beyond rich to have all three chocies]

    I cant say I know people who hang onto or follow the latest ‘list.’ Most are independent cusses, and like their liquor, want to choose their own books –as they often know their genre preferences better than any ‘recording records joint’ like a ‘list.’

  6. i have seen complaints that the way amazon does best sellers (or do they call it ranking) is not fair either.

    Amazon is not open about their sales figures either.

    So yes, you can say they are not being transparent, but including another non-transparent list as your proof is not convincing.

    As a reader, I cant really get outraged about this. I can understand authors might feel differently.

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