[Peace-discuss] Re: Denigrating Carter's Book

[John W.]

At 05:00 PM 1/15/2007, John W. wrote:

>At 09:35 AM 1/15/2007, David Green wrote:
>
>>This should clarify John Wason's concern: there are already positive 
>>customer reviews, but the "headline" review selected is the Goldberg drive-by.
>>
>>DG
>
>Looks to me like Amazon.com has changed it.  I just did the search, 
>precisely as the author below suggests.  I got simply the list of Jimmy 
>Carter's books, with "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" at the top of the 
>list.  When I checked out the 415 customer reviews, all of the reviews on 
>the first page were positive.
>
>So perhaps Amazon IS responsive to customer feedback, and the outrage 
>expressed worked as it should?
>
>I still can't explain why their initial inclination would have been to 
>denigrate Carter's book, however.
>
>John Wason


Ah, never mind.  I guess you're talking about the Editorial Review by Jeff 
Goldberg of the Washington Post.  It's still there.

Mea culpa.

John again



>>[Excerpt from Qumsiyeh's [HumanRights] Amazon.com, wheels of justice,
>>and "Little Mosque on the Prairie" ; 1/14/07]
>>
>>Follow-up to earlier action alert about Amazon's poor treatment of
>>Carter's book: Thanks to the hundreds of you who wrote and those who
>>copied me on the letters to Amazon. Other recipients of my email said
>>they could not find the negative Washington Post/Goldberg review
>>displayed prominently in the front. But you can go to Amazon.com and
>>search Jimmy Carter and it will take you to its page. There you would
>>actually have to scroll through it to get to customer reviews which I
>>agree were good. Other readers said that Amazon has allowed good
>>customer reviews and so it is OK if they included Goldberg's malicious
>>review. But this is simply not how Amazon treats other books. In fact
>>to my knowledge there is simply no book in Amazon's top 100 sellers
>>that is treated like Carter's (with a negative long review before
>>customer reviews). Take for example Thomas Friedman's stupid book in
>>defense of corporate globalization "The World is Flat" and see how it
>>is displayed with no negative editorial reviews. In fact, Amazon sells
>>Hitler's Mein Kempf, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and other
>>books like that without treating them in as shabby a way they treated
>>Carter's book (ie. no lengthy 1600 word negative reviews in the section
>>for editorial reviews)! BTW, the reviewer (Goldberg) was a guard at the
>>infamous Ketziot prison (in this video about political prisoners in
>>Israeli jails their is quite a chilling anecdote about Ketziot:
>>"Captured Prisoners,"
>><http://www.ifamericansknew.org/ 
>>stats/cap-pris.html>http://www.ifamericansknew.org/stats/cap-pris.html). 
>>Anyway I know I
>>will buy my future books at local booksellers and when I have to do it
>>over the internet, I will use the unionized bookstore Powells. If you
>>enter through the union portal, a percent supports the union there:
>><http://www.unionplus.org/benefits/education/frame_powells.cfm>http://www.unionplus.org/benefits/education/frame_powells.cfm
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