The New York Times omitted Ted Cruz’s news book from their bestsellers list after accusing him of ‘strategic bulk purchases’. But it seems to have worked out in his favor.
This omission raised suspicions among many on the right who speculated that the Times was ignoring the book and its sales success because of its outspoken, conservative author. The newspaper’s excuse for dismissing A Time for Truth? A spokesperson for the liberal paper said, “In the case of this book, the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases.”
The Times never offered its “overwhelming” evidence of those “strategic bulk purchases,” and as Politico has since reported, “Both HarperCollins, the book’s publisher, and Amazon, the largest Internet retailer in the country, said last week that they had found ‘no evidence’ that bulk purchases drove the book’s sales numbers.” The Politico piece also notes that a Cruz spokesperson says that another major bookseller, Barnes & Noble, has disputed the “bulk purchases” excuse offered by the Times.
Fast forward about a week, and the situation has changed dramatically — changed in favor of Ted Cruz and his popular new book. Not only is The New York Times letting its readers know that the conservative candidate’s memoir “will appear at No. 7 on the Times’ list for hardcover nonfiction,” as Politico observes, the reason for the book’s strong second-week sales is being attributed to the flap over its first-week omission from the bestsellers list.
Read more: Western Journalism
