Ted Cruz Ping! If you want on/off this ping list, please let me know.
Please beware, this is a high-volume ping list!
CRUZ or LOSE!
Posted on 07/13/2015 8:11:32 AM PDT by VinL
The New York Times' refusal to put Ted Cruz's memoir on its bestseller list is once again being called into question — this time by Amazon, the largest Internet retailer in the country.
On Sunday, an Amazon spokesperson told the On Media blog that the company's sales data showed no evidence of unusual bulk purchase activity for the Texas senator's memoir, casting further doubt on the Times' claim that the book — "A Time For Truth" — had been omitted from its list because sales had been driven by "strategic bulk purchases."
"As of yesterday, 'A Time for Truth' was the number 13 bestselling book, and there is no evidence of unusual bulk purchase activity in our sales data," Sarah Gelman, Amazon's director of press relations, said in an email.
Amazon's findings match those of HarperCollins, the book's publisher, which said Friday that it had "investigated the sales pattern" for Cruz’s book and found "no evidence of bulk orders or sales through any retailer or organization." Moments after that announcement, Cruz's campaign issued a press release accusing the Times of lying and calling on the paper to provide evidence of bulk purchasing or else formally apologize.
“The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out. But their response — alleging ‘strategic bulk purchases’ — is a blatant falsehood,” Cruz campaign spokesperson Rick Tyler said in a statement Friday. “The evidence is directly to the contrary. In leveling this false charge, the Times has tried to impugn the integrity of Senator Cruz and of his publisher HarperCollins.”
“A Time For Truth," which was published on June 30, sold 11,854 copies in its first week -- more than 18 of the 20 titles on the Times bestseller list for the week ending July 4, according to Nielsen bookscan. On raw numbers, Cruz's book would have finished at #3 on the Times' influential list of hardcover nonfiction. However, the Times informed HarperCollins last week that Cruz's book would not be on the list.
In an email last week, Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy said that "A Time For Truth" did not meet the paper's "uniform standards," which include "an analysis of book sales that goes beyond simply the number of books sold." In the case of Cruz's book, she said, "the overwhelming preponderance of evidence was that sales were limited to strategic bulk purchases."
As HarperCollins has noted, Cruz's book “ranked high on other publishing industry bestseller lists including Nielsen Bookscan (#4) … The Wall Street Journal (#4) and Barnes and Noble (#7),” all of which “omit bulk orders books from their rankings.”
The fracas between Cruz and the Times has been a boon to the Texas senator's presidential campaign, sparking outrage and sympathy from conservatives who suspect liberal bias from the Times and the mainstream media.
“It’s been a good week and a half with wall-to-wall coverage of the book, and yes, this latest unfortunate news courtesy of the New York Times is a chance to get yet more attention and drive readers to Senator Cruz’s book,” Keith Urbahn, the book's literary agent, said last week. “This controversy is already helping sales.”
I think it was a lot earlier. Like 1980 but there’s no question they hit a whole other level in 2008.
On the 80 thing I would cite the actions the MSM of the day took to crucify Reagan throughout the 80s including their backflips over Iran Contra and the various actions Ronnie took against muslims.
Yes they are FAR worse today. But they have been very very in the tank for decades.
It definitely happened with Hillary’s books. A lot of them went into storage for six months, and then emerged at the $2.99 book deals later. You even had libraries buying in bulk with her book, and there a dozen copies sat on some new-book shelf area...with no one ever checking it out.
Sans-Culotte, I’m sure both Obama and Hillary’s books received bulk sales, especially the latter. I think Obama’s book legitimately sold as there was interest in him.
Hillary’s most recent book was a publishing disaster. It reached No. 1, mostly because the distribution was massive. Most of them were ultimately returned to the publisher and shredded in massive amounts. It sold 85,000 in the first week. By week 10 it was selling fewer than 10,000 copies. It had an initial print run of 1,000,000. To sell only 250,000 books on an initial print run of 1,000,000 probably should have gotten someone at S&S fired.
Typo, it should read by week 10 Hillary’s book was selling fewer than 5,000 copies a week.
Who cares about these silly lists? Only fans are going to buy it and they are going to like it or not. *shrug*.
For the NYT, the bulk sale was to Amazon.com and the company admits that it purchased several thousand volumes to distribute to Cruz sycophants, albeit for a nominal fee. Thus the NYT is right in saying that Cruz’s book rating is from that and other bulk sales to Barnes & Noble, Walmart, Sam’s Club and other right-wing facist groups.
(sarcasm)
Ted Cruz Ping! The media silence on this overt bias is sad.
NY Times - All The News That’s Fit to Print*
*Excludes news favorable to conservatives
I just got my copy delivered. A bulk purchase of 1.
I bought a copy, Amazon even had it delivered with Prime for free on Sunday.
Amazon speaks. The matter is resolved.
While I never believed the NYT, Cruz’s publisher also could not be considered unbiased on the matter.
Did not slow em down when they were helping hawk Jim Wright’s book.
They did? I have no idea.
Did I check my facts, no.
Good enough for the Slimes good enough for me.
Bump
Interesting. Thanks for sharing the info.
BuckeyeTexan, glad to do it.
Daily Digest Ted Cruz Ping for July 12th, 2015! ““The Times is presumably embarrassed by having their obvious partisan bias called out.”
I’m surprised Amazon did it. Since Amazon took away my right to buy a flag on their website.
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