In early 2016, Vance’s Hillbilly Elegy had not yet been published and approximately zero people had ever heard of him — but The New York Times began making him a star anyway. In February 2016, Times columnist Ross Douthat promoted a piece Vance wrote for National Review. In April, the Times published a Vance op-ed. (“Mr. Trump is unfit for our nation’s highest office,” Vance noted after indulging a lengthy bit of self-mythologizing about his own “Mamaw.”) Just two months later, the Times published another Vance op-ed, though the book whose sales supposedly made him famous still had not yet been published.4 Three days later, Times columnist David Brooks got in on the action, devoting a column to promoting Hillbilly Elegy on the day of its publication. In August, the Times ran pieces promoting Vance and his book on the 2nd, the 5th, a rave review on the 10th, and then featured Vance as the guest on its podcast on the 19th.Some of those were in the book section, which was, at the time, run by Pamela Paul.
Anyway, Jamo makes the case that they created something out of nothing, due to various successful PR pushes to willing accomplices at the New York Times.