Posted on 08/15/2009 7:27:25 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The New York Times is generally loathe to dignify conservative-leaning books with an official review.
That stance is getting dicier these days, especially since the newspaper’s own nonfiction bestseller chart is chockablock with conservatives luminaries like Michelle Malkin, Dick Morris and Mark Levin.
President Barack Obama has only been in office for roughly eight months, but he’s already inspired multiple conservative bestsellers.
Malkin’s Culture of Corruption sits atop the list, followed by Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny in the two slot and Catastrophe by Morris and Eileen McGann at number four.
Marji Ross, president and publisher of Regnery Publishing, isn’t surprised by the newspaper’s stance against these like-minded books.
“Very rarely do they review conservative books,” Ross says. “What they sometimes do is mention a book that is conservative on their “Inside the List” feature. It’s a way to defend themselves against the accusation they ignore these books.”
The New York Times did see fit to print reviews of major liberal books from Michael Moore (Dude, Where's My Country?), Eric Alterman (What Liberal Media?) and Al Franken (Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them) but has yet to examine the aforementioned right-leaning bestsellers.
Having one’s book reviewed in The New York Times meant something up until recently.
“Traditionally, most publishers and authors are very eager to get in the New York Times to review their books,” Ross says.
Now, readers take their cues from talk radio and the Internet.
“People tend to trust what they hear on talk radio rather than what they might read in the New York Times,” she says. “They develop a relationship with a talk radio show and what the host likes and is interested in.”
The runaway success of Malkin’s book is opening media doors that once seemed closed. The author recently appeared on the far-left talk show “The View” as well as “The Today Show.”
“They wouldn’t have been interested in her at all if not for the huge surge of interest in the book,” she says, adding Matt Lauer on the “Today Show” barely kept himself in check while allowing Malkin to expound on her book’s arguments.
Ross doesn’t fear left-leaning interviewers tearing into Regnery authors.
“Our authors are almost always folks who can hold their own in a debate. They can defend their point of view in hostile territory,” she says.
Roger Kimball, publisher of Encounter Books and author of Tenured Radicals: How Politics Has Corrupted Our Higher Education, says his company stopped sending its books to the New York Times last year. The paper rarely analyzed its product, and the few times it did the reviewer trashed the tomes in an ugly fashion.
Yet the newspaper saw fit to call What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News by The Nation’s Eric Alterman “impressively researched and documented.”
“The Times has always been a liberal newspaper, and that’s fine,” Kimball says. “Increasingly, it’s a paper whose entire coverage has been determined by ideological litmus tests.”
Book readers seem to care less and less about what the newspaper thinks of a particular book, he says.
“You can do very well without the imprimatur of the New York Times,” he says. “The dirty little secret is that the Times doesn’t matter anymore, or it matters less and less. Many other outlets beat the Times to the stories and provide much fuller coverage.”
A chapter in Harry Stein’s new book, I Can’t Believe I’m Sitting Next to a Republican, is dedicated to the culture wars flaring within the publishing industry. Republican recalls how mainstream publishing houses turned down future smashes like Bernard Goldberg’s Bias simply because they couldn’t relate to its themes -- or preferred not to even try.
Kimball says the recent surge in conservative book sales means people are starting to realize the full extent of “Hope and Change.”
“The relationship between the individual and the state is up for re-negotiation in this country,“ he says.
President Obama promised a fundamental transformation of this country, he says, which presently stands as the wealthiest, most militarily powerful and freest country on the globe.
“Which of those things would you like to change?” he asks.
“That burgeoning awareness accounts for the popularity of these books,” he adds. “The grassroots concern and irritation you see at town hall meetings across the country, the spontaneous eruptions from ordinary citizens -- our very basic freedoms are being negotiated away.”
Ross agrees, saying the tidal wave of conservative best sellers reveals “a hunger in the marketplace for books reflecting what the majority of Americans are worried about,” she says, a movement that isn’t solely conservative in nature.
“They feel they have no voice in Washington, no voice in the political power structure, and they’re looking for an alternative,” she says.
-- Christian Toto is a freelance entertainment writer and contributing film critic for The Washington Times. His work has appeared in People magazine, MovieMaker Magazine, The Denver Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and Scripps Howard News Service. He also provides movie radio commentary to three stations as well as the nationally syndicated Dennis Miller Show.
Morris is like a lot of the other pieces of trash-—he goes where his ego & the money take him.
We could ask, "Who needs a review from the New York Times?"
I don’t read the times because it has absolutely no credibility at all.
LS, all you need is for Rush to say you have a new book out. A lot better that NYT or WaPo saying anything.
I have to get Patriot’s History back for my brother, lent it last year, haven’t gotten yet. Guess he likes it.
There goes the NYT excuse that the conservative books "lack intellectual heft." Moore, Alterman and Franken are pure sap. Comic books without the art.
There goes the NYT excuse that the conservative books "lack intellectual heft." Moore, Alterman and Franken are pure sap. Comic books without the art.
Authors of conservative books should insist on their contracts that “New York Times Bestseller” and such-like phrases NOT BE USED on the covers of nor advertising for their books.
Aren’t there any other Listings of Bestsellers??
That paper is a farce. It needs to be mocked even more openly amongst conservatives and Republican officials. The media needs to answer for their leftist, agenda driven propaganda. They are no friends to freedom of the press and are corrupt to the core. They deserve not even the appearance of legitimacy. The voices need to get louder and openly challenge them.
It may be a farce but at least the Sunday edition is $6.00.
A Patriot's History of the United States (2004)
America's Victories: Why the U.S. Wins Wars (2006)
48 Liberal Lies About American History (2008)
And next month, American Entrepreneur is released.
You can find any and all, plus my two novels, Halsey's Bluff and September Day, on Amazon and most bookstores carry Patriot's History or 48, though AV is out of print.
In 2006, guest host on Rush, Tom Sullivan, had me on for 1/2 hour with America's Victories, and it shot up to #30 on Amazon.
Most recently, Rush didn't discuss 48 Liberal Lies, but I was on almost every other radio show, not to mention Hannity, twice, and "Fox and Friends" perhaps a dozen times. That really helped.
The readership now of THE TIMES is now being reduced to elite, effete liberals who who hemmed in by illegals, Reagan Dems, and Indies who no longer kow tow to the leftist screeds that have dominated the Times for decades. Who cares what they review or read? The public does not depend on The Times to tell them what books or plays or films to see and watch. There is more news on the Net in one day that covers all fields of endeavor and ideologies , so why bother with the 1930’s type socialists at the Times?
I’ve said it before, Why don’t we create our own Conservative entertainment? Why do we have to keep relying on the Liberal newspapers, magazines, authors, book reviewers, musicians, movies, etc etc etc, for our entertaiment? The Liberals have done it - they’ve created an empire - an octopus with many tentacles - that is strangling society. Why can’t we create our own entertainment??!! Why do we have to keep relying on the Liberals in order to be “validated”? Wah, they won’t review the Conservative books! Well, duh! It’s THEIR world. Why don’t we just create our own?
There is plenty of conservative talent and product. The problem is distribution. Our own FReepers LS and Travis McGee could probably add more more insight into this aspect of the problem.
I very often end up buying self-published books. I have noticed that they are usually more expensive than mass-market publishers. Possibly because they don’t have the volume to get breaks on the costs?
Years and years ago, way before FNC, there were several attempts at conservative news and talk shows on TV. I don’t even recall what channels they were on, perhaps the original Learning Channel? They were, for the most part, boring, amateurish and preachy (IMO), with the exception of Newt’s lecture series on American History. Once FNC came along, the same personalities and the same topics were suddenly entertaining and informative. Presentation is vital and our media would have to appeal to the undecided, moderates and even the conservative Democrats to be viable. FNC has done that.
I don’t want to see intellectual apartheid. I want to see vital conservative content that captivates everyone from all sides of the spectrum. I think all the conservative authors on the NYT Best Seller list have done that. I think Travis and LS have done that in their respective genres, as well. It was probably most difficult for LS to survive and succeed in the textbook market, which is highly politicized.
Travis spins a great yarn and the ideology is believable and acceptable in context. Perhaps he can tell us why he decided to self-publish. Seems to me his books could compete head-to-head with any thriller/post-apocalyptic/survivalist/dystopian novel out there.
IIRC, it was the “Limbaugh Letter” that I heard about your book. Not sure if I knew if you were a FReeper then.
That interview is in the book I “lent” to my brother.
BTW, thought it was 2005? Well that’s when I bought it.
The New York What?
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