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The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

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Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#31

Post by NicoJuicy »

chc wrote: post #28
dlivingston wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of influential figures publish their reading lists, like Bill Gates [0], Elon Musk [1], and Patrick Collision [2] [0]: https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Summer-Books-201... [1]: https://medium.com/swlh/elon-musks-reading-list-every-book-h... [2]: https://patrickcollison.com/bookshelf

That seems like an even more questionable tool for deciding what to read than a best-seller list. Those guys are renowned for starting tech companies that made lots of money, not for their outstanding taste in books.

They are also very smart, which made them read/like interesting books.

If they read books ofc, in these cases they obviously do

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#32

Post by phnofive »

trentnix wrote: post #16
hirundo wrote: post #5

Kudos to the Post for attempting to produce an objective list. The New York Times doesn't: > In other words, The New York Times best-seller list is not a best-seller list -- which even The New York Times once acknowledged. In the early 1980s, William Peter Blatty, author of the monumental best-seller "The Exorcist," sued The New York Times for only listing his novel on the list one time, even though it sold in the mi…

Does that apply to the rest of paper as well?

Taking your question at face value, yes, and it’s true of every private news company. They are first and foremost entertainers, and even those who hold themselves out as agents of change require a large audience.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#33

Post by greedo »

peterlk wrote: post #22

Here's how "Best Sellers" become a thing: Publishers count the number of books they sell. This seems pretty simple, right? It is, but as a consequence, easily gamed. Publishers don't sell to you and me, they sell to book stores. So, you create some marketing to get people to preorder your book from a lots of different book stores. Book sellers inform the number of copies based, in part, on preorder numbers. There are…

Book sellers are rarely stuck with unsold inventory. They almost always have the ability to send unsold inventory (though not magazines) back to the publisher for full credit.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#35

Post by pjc50 »

huffmsa wrote: post #26
Tushon wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was dismissed recently, with a handy summary from the judge: The judge who oversaw the case, William O. Bertlesman, said in his dismissal, "The Court accepts Sandmann's statement that, when he was standing motionless in the confrontation with Phillips, his intent was to calm the situation and not to impede or block anyone. However, Phillips did not see it that way. He concluded that he was being 'blocked' and no…

It'll certainly be interesting to see where the appeal goes. I need to read the opinion, but my initial inclination is that the judge should have let it go to trial.

Wins against newspapers for libel are extremely rare in First Amendment country.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#36

Post by matchbok »

huffmsa wrote: post #9
pwinnski wrote: post #2

The process was broken for seven months before anybody noticed? If I were the Washington Post, I'd wonder why nobody brought up discrepancies with other lists during that time.

This is the same publication staring down a $250m libel lawsuit for their inability to fact check before publishing. You expect too much from them.

Frivolous lawsuit, you mean. Perhaps you need to do some fact-checking.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#37

Post by cptnapalm »

huffmsa wrote: post #9
pwinnski wrote: post #2

The process was broken for seven months before anybody noticed? If I were the Washington Post, I'd wonder why nobody brought up discrepancies with other lists during that time.

This is the same publication staring down a $250m libel lawsuit for their inability to fact check before publishing. You expect too much from them.

As other replies stated, the suit was dismissed and for the reasons stated. However, this is how journalists do hit pieces: find someone who will say what they want to say then quote them and thus is slander converted into "news". In this case they wanted to hold up for public hatred a kid who was just waiting for his bus. Why else would a kid waiting for a school bus be news?

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#38

Post by huffmsa »

matchbok wrote: post #36
huffmsa wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the same publication staring down a $250m libel lawsuit for their inability to fact check before publishing. You expect too much from them.

Frivolous lawsuit, you mean. Perhaps you need to do some fact-checking.

My comments are merely opinion, fact checking not needed.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#39

Post by huffmsa »

pjc50 wrote: post #35
huffmsa wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'll certainly be interesting to see where the appeal goes. I need to read the opinion, but my initial inclination is that the judge should have let it go to trial.

Wins against newspapers for libel are extremely rare in First Amendment country.

But we've also never been at a point in history where a "respectable" publication can blast erroneous information out at the scale the Post did.

They might not lose the in a trial, but there needs to be reconning of some sort which breaks the assumed trust we've developed with antiquated publications.

Re: The Washington Post's bestseller lists have been wrong

#40

Post by liability »

huffmsa wrote: post #39
pjc50 wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wins against newspapers for libel are extremely rare in First Amendment country.

But we've also never been at a point in history where a "respectable" publication can blast erroneous information out at the scale the Post did. They might not lose the in a trial, but there needs to be reconning of some sort which breaks the assumed trust we've developed with antiquated publications.

You should consider the probability that in the past when newspapers deceived the public, the deception went largely unnoticed (at least at the time.) For instance, there is the time American newspapers almost single-handedly started a war with Spain.

Or, even worse, the infamous case of Pulitzer Prize winner and genocide denying communist sympathizer Walter Duranty using the New York Times to promote Soviet propaganda during the Holodomor. The damage there is still ongoing, despite the NYTs coming clean half a century later. When HBO's Chernobyl mentioned it by name, that was the first time many Americans ever heard the word.

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