Two out of the three networks on Thursday night and Friday morning yawned at Amazon’s BLATANT censorship of negative reviews for Hillary Clinton’s new book, What Happened. Only CBS This Morning noticed — with a scant 27 seconds of coverage — that the website is wiping out one-star reviews.
Co-host Norah O’Donnell offered no chiding as she marveled, “Amazon acknowledges removing one-star reviews of Hillary Clinton's new book. Wow.” She uncritically parroted, “Amazon said it has mechanisms in place to ‘ensure that the voices of the many do not drown out the voices of a few.’”
With no sense of irony, O’Donnell noted, “What Happened is published by Simon and Shuster, a division of CBS and it currently has five stars on Amazon.” Well, yeah. When you remove the bad reviews, it’s easy to garner five stars.
Despite a combined six hours of air time, ABC and NBC on Friday skipped the aggressive act of liberal censorship.
On Amazon, the book currently has 764 (accepted) reviews with an average of 4.8 stars out of 5. Amazon claims it has only 4 percent negative reviews with 92 percent being five-stars. There are reviews like this one: “I wrote a verified purchase review and it has been deleted 3 times. If Amazon doesn't like what we have to say, don't ask for input.”
And this one: “Hillary, please stop deleting my truthful review. I wasted 14 bucks, and I didn't like your book. K, thanks.” Yet, they are clearly the minority, responses that survived the purge.
As the MRC’s Tim Graham pointed out, it seems that many of the five-star reviews are based on love for the author. Just like one-star reviews come from an aversion to Clinton. But only one-star reviews are being deleted.
Will the Washington Post (owned by Amazon) investigate?
A transcript of the brief is below:
CBS This Morning
9/15/17
8:32:08 to 8:32:35
NORAH O’DONNELL: USA Today reports that Amazon acknowledges removing one-star reviews of Hillary Clinton's new book. Wow. The online giant is defending its removal of negative reviews for the book called What Happened. Amazon said it has mechanisms in place to “ensure that the voices of the many do not drown out the voices of a few.” What Happened is published by Simon and Shuster, a division of CBS and it currently has five stars on Amazon.GAYLE KING: And selling pretty well right now.
JEFF GLOR: Sounds like a line from Star Trek.
