Regnery, conservative publisher, parts ways with New York Times over alleged ‘best-sellers’ bias

A publishing house specializing in books written by conservative authors said it has severed ties with The New York Times and will no longer cite the newspaper’s widely regarded best-sellers list because of its alleged liberal bias.

“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,” Marji Ross, the president of Regnery Publishing, said Monday.

“Increasingly, it appears that the Times has gathered book sale data in a manner which prioritizes liberal-themed books over conservative books and authors. 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,” Ms. Ross wrote in a letter to Regnery authors.

In turn the publisher is “cutting all ties” with The Times and its best-sellers list and in its place will rely on sales figures generated by Nielsen’s BookScan report, Regnery said in a statement.

“We refuse to continue to highlight a list which has an increasingly diminished value to our audience. Therefore, we will no longer promote, publicize or frankly even bother to mention this list. Our bestselling books will no longer carry the ’NYT bestseller’ banner on their covers, nor will we use the moniker in our marketing or publicity,” Ms. Ross said.

“I ask you to consider this: We are often told it’s foolish to bite the hand that feeds you,” Ms. Ross added. “I say it’s just as foolish to feed the hand that bites you.”

Regnery has published conservatives including Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, to name a few, and cited recently released books written by Dinesh D’Souza and Raheem Kassam in its rationale for cutting ties with The Times.

Mr. D’Souza’s latest book, a Regnery publication titled “The Big Lie: Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left,” was ranked No. 7 on a recent Times list despite being the nationwide top-seller, according to Nielsen data. Mr. Kassam, meanwhile, was left off a recent Times list altogether in spite of outselling several books included by the newspaper.

Nilsen’s BookScan measures print sales in stores representing roughly 85 percent of the market, and The Times said its own list is compiled from surveys sent to thousands of booksellers, The Associated Press reported.

“Our goal is that the lists reflect authentic best-sellers,” Times spokesman Jordan Cohen told the AP. “The political views of authors have no bearing on our rankings, and the notion that we would manipulate the lists to exclude books for political reasons is simply ludicrous.”