Just moments after publisher HarperCollins announced Sarah Palin’s upcoming book would have its release moved up from next spring to November 17, the book’s presale numbers rocketed Going Rogue to number 1 on Amazon’s bestseller list.
The overnight success of Palin’s upcoming tome continued a trend where books by conservative authors like Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, Ann Coulter, and Michelle Malkin have more than held their own in the marketplace. Unlike Palin, though, these four are conservative figures who dabble in other areas of media – Beck does a daily television and radio show, Levin hosts his own nightly radio show, and Coulter and Malkin toil as syndicated columnists. Thus, it can be argued they have more of a built-in audience for their books whereas Palin does not. Yet this conservative dominance of bestseller lists simply echoes the overwhelming ratings lead Fox News has over its competitors in the news network business, competitors which are perceived to be more left-leaning than Fox.
On the other hand, traditional newspapers and the so-called “alphabet” networks of ABC, CBS, and NBC have seen their readership and ratings decline steadily over the last several years. True, part of this comes from the faster methods of information dissemination we have today – decades ago radio and television supplanted the newspaper as a device for breaking news because they were readily available and could be updated at any particular moment as opposed to a newspaper, and this evolution continues with the internet.
Certainly reporting on the internet shares the on-the-spot news gathering ability with television and radio, and many news outlets now supplant their broadcast or printed content with gaudy websites of their own. However, consumers have a larger multitude of choices through the World Wide Web than either television or radio can provide and it appears news consumers are voting with their patronage by choosing sources which don’t appear to slant their coverage toward a liberal worldview.
As the oldest technology among news sources (and generally considered the most left-leaning), the newspaper is also among the media’s most endangered species. There are even those in Congress clamoring for a federal bailout of the newspaper industry in return for those newspapers dropping overt political endorsements – a bailout President Obama is receptive to.
Ironically, the initial success of Sarah Palin’s upcoming book might be because she’s been heavily scrutinized and vilified by many of those same media outlets in the wake of her selection as part of the 2008 GOP ticket. Prior to last September Palin was barely known outside Alaska, but the incessant media coverage tended either to try to find as much dirt on her as possible or paint her as an unqualified back-country hick – never mind she was the lone major party candidate with any sort of political executive experience from being a mayor and governor. It’s most telling that the quote most famously attributed to Palin was actually uttered by an actress doing an impersonation of her on a late-night comedy show.
Given the negative perception with which many painted Sarah Palin, the fact that her upcoming book – which was completed months ahead of schedule – is going to be such a blockbuster may come across as a head-scratcher to observers in the business. But those in flyover country who saw the treatment Pain received from the media for having the courage to speak to issues dear to those on the conservative end of the political spectrum are getting the one piece of revenge they can by purchasing the Palin book and going rogue on their own.
Michael Swartz is a Liberty Features Syndicated writer.
Editor’s note: Since the syndication network who puts out my opinion pieces is growing I’m only clearing one per week now. This is the latest release from October 8th.
