Thread by @biblioracle

I'm a weekly reader of the New York Times book review, but I do wish they'd cease the practice of putting their thumb on the scales so blatantly with their choice of reviewers.

When I'm aware of the tilt it requires me to read the resulting review through the scrim of obvious (yet often unstated) bias. Jesse Singal reviewing a book on transgender rights that just happens to reflect 95% of his own POV is an obvious slant that goes unstated.

I think Singal is a bad choice for that book, but I wouldn't definitively say he shouldn't do it except that I believe the writer/publication should be open and transparent with their audience. They should know the author's position relative to the subject

John McWhorter reviewing Randall Kennedy's book similarly guarantees a positive review given that their views are nearly 100% aligned. I must imagined that they're at least friendly as well. Isn't there an academic available who might have more distance?

The Times book review does this all the time with fiction too. There's occasional pairings where I can tell that for whatever reason, it was time for someone to take the starch out of a writer. Mostly, though, it's more clubby and positive.

David French on Andrew Sullivan, another recent example of essentially fixing the tenor of the review before it was written. I expect most readers who aren't as disgustingly online as I am are never aware of these things. Is this a service to the readers?

I'm not hugely plugged into the publishing industry, so I imagine there's lots of connections between reviewers and the reviewed that I have no awareness of and I gotta say, it irritates me and The NY Times book review is by far the worst of the bunch on this front.

I know that a paper can't have 100% written staff reviews, but the stunt casting of a big cultural name reviewing other big cultural names is a waste of our time as readers. And having Jesse Singal review a book critical of transgender rights is quite the choice.

Got a DM asking if I'm torpedoing every having a book reviewed by the Times or writing a review for the Times? The answer is no. I can speak freely without fear of reprisal for things that aren't going to happen.

Got another DM (Why so many people who will only DM about the Times book review?) asking if it matters that the stacking of the deck results in a positive or negative review. Isn't the content of the review, whatever it is, the thing that's most important, rather than 👍👎?

The answer to that DM is no. The content of the review is of course meaningful, but a positive review from the Times book review has demonstrable economic benefits to a book, as does a negative one, obviously. That's a power they should take very seriously.

If the Times book review says they do not take their role as a mover of sales to account because they are interested in journalism and criticism, I would say they're not thinking hard enough about the ethical issues around these acts and the place of their publication in culture.

Pretending something that is true isn't true is a disservice to your audience and not a particularly sound ethical or journalistic practice.

Anyway, here's where I come down in general on these things. Reviewers need not be objective because, come on! there is no such thing. They should be open, transparent, fair, and accurate. The Times book review routinely fails on transparent. insidehighered.com/blogs/just-vis…