Culture | Tipping the sales

Is the New York Times bestseller list politically biased?

Our investigation suggests it is

An illustration showing eight blue books with donkeys on the cover and two red books with elephants on the cover. The blue books are prominent and central to the image whereas the red books are smaller and near the edges. — Illustration: Carl Godfrey/Getty Images

Jun 11th 2024

“The New York Times is pure propaganda,” tweeted Elon Musk, a tech mogul, in March. Mr Musk was responding not to the newspaper’s coverage of his companies or of Donald Trump, but rather to the newspaper’s latest bestseller list. “Troubled”, a book by Rob Henderson, a social critic, about the hypocrisy of America’s elite, had been excluded from the hardcover non-fiction list despite selling 3,765 copies in its first week. According to data from Circana Bookscan, a firm that claims to track 85% of print book sales in America, “Troubled” outperformed the books that ranked in the fourth and fifth slots that week. Many saw the omission as a sign of political bias.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Is the New York Times bestseller list politically biased?”