The New York Post reports on an anonymous rumor that Amazon is going to open one of its Amazon Books branches in Manhattan in 2018 or 2019. The store would be located in the Hudson Yards commercial property. (Actually, the Post refers to “the Hudson Yards stores,” plural, but doesn’t mention the possibility of more than one store anywhere else in the article.)
As journalistic credibility goes, the New York Post isn’t exactly in the same neighborhood as the New York Times, so any news it reports should probably be taken with a significant portion of a salt shaker—especially anonymous rumors without even job postings to support them. Nonetheless, with New York City being the headquarters and stronghold of big publishing, in addition to the most populous metro area in the US, it does make sense for Amazon to go there.
The Hudson Yards development is located right across the street from the Javits Convention Center—the very place BookExpo America has called home in previous years, and where it will again be held in 2017. If that’s not a shot across the bow for big publishing (not to mention big publishing’s friend, Barnes & Noble), I don’t know what is. As Nate Hoffelder notes on The Digital Reader, it’s exactly the sort of upscale retail space Amazon has sought out for its prior locations. But just because it’s likely doesn’t mean it’s true.
Meanwhile, I’m still hoping for any word Amazon might consider a location in Indianapolis. I’m sure it’ll happen sooner or later.
teleread.org 
Quote: “As journalistic credibility goes, the New York Post isn’t exactly in the same neighborhood as the New York Times…”
Oh, I don’t know about that. I’d place both in my beneath-the-used-car-dealer category. If anything, the NYT is a bit further down.
Years ago, two friends of mind were involved in a story that hit front pages across the country. The NYT flew in a reporter to interview them and, at its conclusion, he bluntly told them, “This isn’t the story I was sent to write.” Sent to write? And you thought he was a reporter didn’t you? Report what happened and all that. Hah, hah! You really are foolish.
Did he disagree with anything they’d said? Not in the slightest. What they’d said was backed up by incontrovertible evidence. It’s just that this “story” clashed with two stories (in the sense children mean when the call lies “stories”) that the NYT routinely tells. They were evangelical Christians, a group that the NYT tries to disparage every chance it can get. Both had been shot in the head at pointblank range by two black guys linked to the Black Panthers who were on a killing spree down the East Coast. That was years ago, so you have to realize that, at the time the Black Pathers were as protected by the establishment press in their murderous rage as Islamists are today.
Even worse for the NYT’s “story,” although both had been shot in the head and left for dead, neither was seriously injured. One had the bullet enter one cheek and exit on the other side at the back of his head, miraculously doing so without striking anything vital. He had his wounds dressed and was sent home. The other had the bullet glance off his thumb, strike his metal eyeglass frame at precisely the point where it bounced off rather than enter his head. The resulting impact, however, did cause the side of his head to bleed, so he looked like the bullet had entered his skull. He was kept overnight for observation. Everyone else involved, both the Black Panthers and their string of victims were dead. Only these two were spared. Remarkable wasn’t it?
Ah but not for the nation’s “newspaper of record.” Can you imagine the horror that struck the newsroom when that story came in? Not only were the good guys in the story Evangelical Christians, they’d actually witnessed to the two black men about to kill them. Even worse, their lives had been spared by what looked remarkably like a miracle from God. Shivers must have run up the spines of the NYT editorial staff when they realized that. True or not, this wasn’t a story the NYT felt it should print, “all the news that fits” you know.
So the NYT passed the story along to an reporter who hadn’t done the interview and could thus make hash of it with nasty comments. The NYT reputation for pleasing its readers by making its stories fit certain dogmas was maintained. True to its story line, it blatently lied. And as the press in this country goes, that’s not even unusual. I’ve been part of numerous stories myself and seen the coverage afterward. At times the spin borders on the bizarre. My friends were so ticked off by those lies, when the LA Times called, wanting to send a reporter to interview them, they told it to take a hike.
I could go on and on. The NYT won a Pulitzer in the 1930s for coverage of the USSR that included covering up the mass starvation of Ukranians, some five million people. Last I heard, it still refuses to return that Pulitzer for lies.
During WWII, the NYT routinely buried news of the Holocaust in small type somewhere past page 20. If I recall one book on the topic, the only time the Holocaust made the front page was when a Nazi official denied it was happening. The “story” at that time was that the atrocity propaganda about Belgium in WWI was false and thus (in a strange leap of reasoning), so was this. Keep in mind that there was ample evidence. Even the U.S. State Department, a foul nest of antisemitism, quite denying it was happening in late 1942.
And if you look at the real impact of those small stories after page 20, it was that “this may be happening but it doesn’t matter much.” No story at all would have at least suggested a coverup. A little story buried deep in the paper meant no big deal. The NYT wasn’t even clever enough to figure that out.
Yes, in a sense there’s something quaint about those who trust the credibility of the NYT. It certainly beats thinking for yourself, much less laboring to do your own research. It’s like they said in computers in the 1970s, “No one ever got fired for buying IBM.” It may be a dreadful choice, but you’ll never be blamed for your mistake, at least in certain circles.
But as a trustworthy source of information, the NYT is dreadful and intentionally so. With its fetish about only publishing stories that fit, they intend to keep matters that way. They’ll continue to do that until, hopefully, they roll belly up and sink out of sight. I, for one, won’t morn their demise.
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