Politico’s Calderone is Alone in Mentioning Levin’s Success

What a novelty: a political reporter who reports on the remarkable success of a political book.

Michael Calderone of Politico has been just about alone in reporting on the popularity of conservative radio host and author Mark Levin’s book, “Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto.”

In his blog on September 15, Calderone wrote that “Levin has now sold a million copies of his latest book, Liberty & Tyranny, according to a release.” And Calderone noted that “‘Liberty & Tyranny’ spent 12 weeks at the top of the New York Times' best-seller list and remains in the Top Ten.”

That’s considerably more notice than Levin has received in most of the other mainstream media, including the New York Times itself, and the three broadcast networks. A recent Culture & Media Institute Special Report found that, despite the pronounced success of “Liberty and Tyranny” and other conservative titles, the networks covered best selling liberal books and authors three times more often than comparable conservatives. Levin’s book has never been mentioned on the networks, while far less successful liberal books enjoyed plentiful coverage.

Calderone is also the only mainstream journalist to note the impact conservative books are having on the struggling publishing industry, as he did in a July 21 profile of Threshold, Levin’s publisher.