I wander into the Union Square (NYC) Barnes & Noble this afternoon, and what is the FIRST thing I see? What new work has pride of place, front, center, and above all others, on the first table inside the entry doors?
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=2TCW1CI0TS&isbn=0785261044&itm=1
Journalistic Fraud: How the New York Times Distorts the News and why It Can No Longer Be Trusted
Bob Kohn
From the Publisher - A life-long reader of the New York Times proves how the once-vaunted newspaper has replaced its original noble mission to present straight news with a new subversive mission to manipulate attitudes and promote leftist agendas. For over a hundred years, the New York Times has purported to present straight news and hard facts. But, as Bob Kohn shows with absolute clarity, the founders' original vision has been hijacked, and today, instead of straight news, readers are given mere editorial under the pretense of objective journalism. Kohn shows point by point the methods by which the Times' mission has been subverted by the present management-routinely slanting the presentation of the facts in leads, headlines, and placement; utilizing polls, labels, and loaded language to convey particular views, not genuine news; and staffing the newsroom with hacks who manipulate information to further a leftist agenda. Kohn shows how such fraudulence directly corrupts hundreds of news agencies across the world; and by revealing all their methods of manipulation, he teaches readers how to decipher the slants in even the subtlest of cases, providing an entertaining and enlightening lesson in fraud-busting.
About The Author:
Bob Kohn is an attorney and seasoned executive <i.e. he is nobody> with experience in both the entertainment and high-tech industries. He is currently the vice chairman of the board of Borland Software Corp. and chairman of Laugh.com, a comedy record label. A former associate attorney at a prominent Beverly Hills entertainment law firm, Kohn served as associate editor of the Entertainment Law Reporter. Kohn also co-authored with his father the legal treatise, Kohn on Music Licensing, hailed by USA Today as the "bible of legal issues in the music world."
Publisher: WND Books
I went to the information desk and asked them who made the decisions as to what the front display would be? Was it a corporate directive or did the store manager decide. The clerk behind the desk told me HE put the book there and it was his decision. I asked for the store manager. He was actually belligerant. I asked him why this book was up front - a book by an unknown, uncredentialed author, by an unknown publisher. His answer: no reason.
They said it was a new book, so it was up front. I said you have hundreds of new books, why this one? "No reason."
I gave up on him, he was practically snarling, but I spoke again to the clerk as I was leaving. He said they had gotten a big shipment of this book, so that was one reason. I said this is propaganda by an unknown author and unknown publisher, and I pointed out where the book jacket described the Times as having a "leftist agenda." The clerk said everyobdy knows the Times is leftist. I told him that was HIS opinion. It's certainly not mine.
I then went to another B&N (6th Ave) - the new non-fiction in that store was a few tables back from the front. The book was there, but laid out among the others, not perched top and center above the rest.
What's the deal? Who is this author, who is this publisher, who decides to buy all those copies, and why so belligerant and defensive when they are confronted about it?
This is Manhattan. This is across the street from Union Square, site of some of the biggest labor rallies in American history.
How to complain about this and be heard? Do you think the NYT would look into it?