The Ranger wrote:
>
> Those polls are never about "The Best" when the general public is involves;
> it's only about what's the most familiar. We have several bakeries in my
> little burg that outstanding but Safeway always seems to win that catagory.
> "Best sandwich" is the catagory that Suckway and Quizbarf trade
> back-and-forth. Cheesecake Fuctory and Sapplebee's also get kudos in this
> paper's annual polls so these are immediately suspect.

I guess you don't know very much about the newspaper
business. What makes you think any "poll" was involved?
Was it because that's what the newspaper said they did?

If there was a poll, I'd guess it was of the staff in
the sales department. The winners were the outfits which
buy advertising regularly. They'd be real popular among
the staff whose job is to sell them advertising.

This strategy worked back in the 20th century, when
newspapers had a virtual monopoly on "lifestyle" and
"living" news (what used to be called the "women's section").
TV had some participation in that, but not much because
of their limited air time. Newspapers had the bandwidth
to run long articles with mouth-watering descriptions of
what you can buy at popular chain restaurants and
supermarkets.

But now, the Internet has broken that monopoly. It was
always a racket, and now they must try to survive without
it. That's why newspapers are dying. I will not regret
their death. It is well-deserved, and none too soon.