The New York Times renowned bestseller list placed author Dinesh D'Souza's The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left at No. 7, despite its being No. 1 in sales out of its 14 competitors on the list.
D'Souza noticed the slight and took his grievance to Twitter.
In what alternative universe do Jeff Flake's 7,383 book sales for this week (BookScan data) top mine at 11,651? Thanks @nytimes fake list! pic.twitter.com/JrhZDHaoZ3
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) September 5, 2017
The lowballed placement of D'Souza's book appears to have been the last straw for Regnery Publishing (a sister company of Townhall), who is now parting ways with the NYT bestseller list for good.
“As a conservative publisher, we believe that the Times’ list does not represent national sales of conservative books as accurately as other widely-published bestseller lists,” said Regnery President Marji Ross said in a statement.
She expanded in a letter to colleagues.
“Increasingly, it appears that the Times has gathered book sale data in a manner which prioritizes liberal themed books over conservative books and authors," she wrote. "The net result has been a bestseller list that has increasingly become less relevant to the Regnery audience, and less reflective of which books are actually selling best in the country, regardless of one’s political persuasion.”
The New York Times has a history of questionable placement for books penned by conservatives. Phelim McAleer and wife Ann McElhinney wrote "Gosnell," exposing one of the country's most dangerous abortionists. It was the top hot new release on Amazon, but didn't get as much love from the NYT. The authors defended their work, noting it was not a "pro-life" book - it was a book of journalism.
Times spokesman Jordan Cohen defended the bestseller list, insisting it has nothing to do with politics.
"The notion that we would manipulate the lists to exclude books for political reasons is simply ludicrous,” he said.
Not to Regnery. Ross said that her publishing company will be ignoring the NYT bestseller list in its marketing from now on and will be using the Nielsen BookScan and The Publishers Weekly as its benchmarks instead.