Hearne: KC Wins Dubious Tourism Award & The Star Sucks Up

I know, I know…

After being gone a week, I’ve got bigger fish to fry, but a quick time out while I administer a little nausea medicine to myself over how predictable and lame local media can be when it comes to those bogus “best of” awards national publications dole out to garner publicity and magazine sales.

The latest?

Kansas City‘s No. 1 showing in Travel & Leisure magazine’s most affordable getaway “survey.”

I use the word survey quite lightly, given that the magazine offers no evidence whatsoever how it was conducted or what the specific results of the survey were. Rendering the “findings” in the neighborhood of zero in terms of credibility.

Let me get this straight.

Kansas City is the top tourist destination because our hotel rates have remained mostly flat, sightseeing is cheap and a slow-smoked, burnt end sandwich at Danny Edwards Famous Kansas City BBQ is just $5.99?

Does anybody really buy that? I mean, really?

Besides the Kansas City Star, which laid a huge journalistic blowjob on Travel & Leisure:

“Travel + Leisure magazine has provided a shot in the arm for Kansas City’s economy,” reporter Steve Rosen postulated.

I know Steve – and he’s a super nice guy – but I also know how this game is played at 18th and Grand. Somebody says, “Hey, check this out. We’d better get this into the newspaper.”

And yeah, it’s news, but come on.

It maybe warrants a paragraph or two with the notation that the survey was undocumented. But to pyramid it into “a shot in the arm” for KC’s economy.

Who made that determination? A reporter churning out a filler puff piece?

So yeah, go ahead and believe that KC is a hipper, funner, more affordable place to visit than Nashville, San Antonio, Minneapolis, Memphis, Salt Lake City, Savannah, Georgia, New Orleans, Austin, Charleston and Portland.

If it’s all about affordability, so are Omaha and Des Moines.

That’s a little extreme, but who are we kidding?

Kansas City’s a damn nice town and it’s getting better every day, but it’s hardly a tourist Mecca. And in the wide world of barbecue, singling out Jake Edwards as the go to joint is a joke.

I mean, it’s not bad and undoubtedly a lot of people like it. And it’s got some nice Yelp action and reviews on other sites where anybody can post, but to some extent, that’s the key anybody can administer those anonymous blowjobs.

When I read ultra positive reviews on Yelp, Amazon and the like I’m always a little skeptical of who put them there and why.

So I usually comb through a few of the negative reviews to make sure I’m not getting sandbagged. Remember the Pitch “Best of” ballot stuffing scandal several years back?

I’m a little more comfortable with even handed reviews like this one two months back by Rob J of San Jose:

“Good, but not great.  I like the vibe of the place, and the food was tasty, but it wasn’t ‘knock my socks off and slather me in barbecue sauce’ good.  My food was cold when I got it, and the steak tips that I ordered were inconsistently cooked.  I’ll give it another try the next time I’m in KC so that I can see if this was just a one-off situation.”