Aug 25, 2020 - Politics & Policy

Brian Stelter's Fox News book "Hoax" sells out, with rush reprint

Mike Allen

Screenshot via CNN

"Hoax," the book about Fox News out today by CNN chief media correspondent Brian Stelter, has gotten so much online and TV buzz that the publisher is rushing to print 100,000 more hardcovers, for a total of 150,000.

The state of play: The book from One Signal/Atria, part of Simon & Schuster, has occupied the #1 slot on Amazon the past three days.

Between the lines: A source points out that two other Simon & Schuster books — by Mary Trump and John Bolton — also hit #1 on Amazon and also required rush reprints earlier this summer.

  • So Simon & Schuster has had a string of hot Trump books — with Bob Woodward's "Rage" coming Sept. 15.
  • And out Tuesday from Simon & Schuster: "Melania and Me: The Rise and Fall of My Friendship with the First Lady," by Stephanie Winston Wolkoff.

Stelter's animating idea, as articulated in the epilogue, is that the "Trump age was really the 'hoax' age":

Fox viewers came away with the impression that nothing was truly knowable. Everything was relative. There were distortions and deceptions in every direction. Up could be down and left could be right and real news could be fake.
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