4 ms·

Seems like Canada's largest daily newspaper is stopping just shy of accusing NYT of manipulating their best seller list for e.g. political reasons. This is gett

by vgf 9y ago

Seems like Canada's largest daily newspaper is stopping just shy of accusing NYT of manipulating their best seller list for e.g. political reasons. This is getting interesting...

montrose 9y ago
Yes, reading between the lines, it sounds like they suspect that. They would not have gone into such detail about a mere technicality.
oligopoly 9y ago
It might not be widely known but the NYT Bestseller list is curated list.
- vgf 9y ago
  I guess this incident makes it more widely known.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- olympus 9y ago
  I thought that the curation was fairly widely known, at least in the community of book lovers. But, in this case they weren't claiming it was excluded from the list because some editor removed it in the interest of "curating," they claimed it was excluded because of a hard rule about not including books that weren't published in the US. It would be nice if someone could find a couple of examples of non-controversial books that made the top of other bestseller lists but that the NYT excluded because they weren't published in the US. That would make it a lot easier to defend the accusations that they are using "Canadian published" as an excuse to keep a book off the list they don't like. There have got to be several publishers in other English speaking countries with very popular books that don't have any US presence that still sold well here.
jgalt212 9y ago
Perhaps, but if so, it's being applied very inconsistently. For example, the Op Ed page has recently been printing pieces that have upset the paper's leftest elite champions. e.g. a piece challenge climate change orthodoxy https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-comple...
- akhilcacharya 9y ago
  The "climate change orthodoxy" is the scientific consensus.
  - jgalt212 9y ago
    orthodoxy is an enforcement based method, consensus is survey based method. In any event, the NY Times does often present dissenting views from what one assumes its agenda is. For example, it printing many, many pieces critical of Hillary during the last election cycle.
    - akhilcacharya 9y ago
      That is true, this one always stands out and has not aged well at all. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-el...
- dekhn 9y ago
  The NY Times has been printing op eds that are the opposite of the paper's editors political philosophy. See for example, this William F Buckley editorial suggesting we should tattoo a letter 'A' on the backside of gay men with HIV/AIDS: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-aids.html http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-aids.... There's nothing recent about this. Also, I think we should have the strongest written rebuttals to climate change that we can have, from an intellectual honesty point of view.

by vgf 9y ago

Seems like Canada's largest daily newspaper is stopping just shy of accusing NYT of manipulating their best seller list for e.g. political reasons. This is getting interesting...

montrose 9y ago

Yes, reading between the lines, it sounds like they suspect that. They would not have gone into such detail about a mere technicality.

oligopoly 9y ago

It might not be widely known but the NYT Bestseller list is curated list.

vgf 9y ago
I guess this incident makes it more widely known.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
olympus 9y ago
I thought that the curation was fairly widely known, at least in the community of book lovers. But, in this case they weren't claiming it was excluded from the list because some editor removed it in the interest of "curating," they claimed it was excluded because of a hard rule about not including books that weren't published in the US. It would be nice if someone could find a couple of examples of non-controversial books that made the top of other bestseller lists but that the NYT excluded because they weren't published in the US. That would make it a lot easier to defend the accusations that they are using "Canadian published" as an excuse to keep a book off the list they don't like. There have got to be several publishers in other English speaking countries with very popular books that don't have any US presence that still sold well here.

jgalt212 9y ago

Perhaps, but if so, it's being applied very inconsistently. For example, the Op Ed page has recently been printing pieces that have upset the paper's leftest elite champions. e.g. a piece challenge climate change orthodoxy https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-complete-certainty.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/28/opinion/climate-of-comple...

akhilcacharya 9y ago
The "climate change orthodoxy" is the scientific consensus.
- jgalt212 9y ago
  orthodoxy is an enforcement based method, consensus is survey based method. In any event, the NY Times does often present dissenting views from what one assumes its agenda is. For example, it printing many, many pieces critical of Hillary during the last election cycle.
  - akhilcacharya 9y ago
    That is true, this one always stands out and has not aged well at all. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-election-donald-trump.html https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/01/us/politics/fbi-russia-el...
dekhn 9y ago
The NY Times has been printing op eds that are the opposite of the paper's editors political philosophy. See for example, this William F Buckley editorial suggesting we should tattoo a letter 'A' on the backside of gay men with HIV/AIDS: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-aids.html http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/07/16/specials/buckley-aids.... There's nothing recent about this. Also, I think we should have the strongest written rebuttals to climate change that we can have, from an intellectual honesty point of view.