Advance publicity for this month’s Republican Convention is now in full, ramp-up mode. USA Today has already been on site. So has the Travel Channel. This Sunday’s New York Times Travel section has a major feature focusing on what Charlotte and Tampa have to offer.
No, the Times didn’t check with Tampa Bay & Co., the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce or the Tampa Downtown Partnership. Sure, it would have risked blatantly self-promoting, establishment responses, but at least it wouldn’t have needed (seemingly unavailable) fact-checkers.
The Times featured a dozen “keynote addresses,” a variation on the “best places to…” format. Plus accompanying photographs–ranging from Inkwood Books to Ybor City. Alas, not all of the photos came with correct identifications. (The Tampa Bay Times Forum, for example, is not the “Convention Center” nor is Hillsborough Bay the same as “Tampa Bay.”) Its eclectic, hardly whimsy-challenged, insider sources: Gia Porras, a host of the “Two Big Mouths” podcast; Andre Jones, a bass player for Florida Night Heat; Janet Montano, a Keller Williams Realty agent; Andy Solomon, a professor of English and writing at the University of Tampa; and Seble Gizaw, chef and owner of Queen of Sheba restaurant.
A sampling:
* Best Place to Pick Up Your Emergency Red Power Tie: “The clothes at Sunshine Thrift Store are stylish but have a certain inexpensiveness to them. There’s a fiscally responsible quality to a secondhand tie.”–Andre Jones.
* Hotel Most Likely to be Featured in the Background of a Shirtless, Self-Taken Photo: “Nebraska Avenue has a plethora of ‘hotels’ for the Republican of distinction.”–Jones.
* Best Place to Misuse PAC funds: “The world-famous Mons Venus, a strip club. We’re Florida; we do tourism right. We’re fully prepared to take away any disposable income or per diem in a way that’s the least traceable to you.”–Andy Solomon.