We always try like mad to balance out our fun and festive reviews of persons, places, things, events and other assorted nouns in reasonable ways, but as of late, we’ve been focusing an awful lot on the city of San Francisco. That’s not what we’ve been fielding emails about, it’s more about the way we’ve reviewed them, so let me just tell you, we aren’t on the take.
So let’s just say this real quick and put the issue to bed – nobody has paid us for a review of their event, attraction, hotel, motel, bed & breakfast, restaurant, brunch or strip of grass along side of the road.
Think about it pragmatically for a minute and look back at what we’re writing even more than that. We’ve reviewed some expensive stuff, some cheap stuff, and a literal ton of free stuff. If you look at the free stuff, you’ll find they get the same sort of whole-hearted and honest review that the expensive ones get.
But in all honesty, we do get something. Some of the events and attractions promoted in our San Francisco reviews, we were granted free admission because of our journalistic status. Not all of them granted this to us (because the rest are probably jerks or something) but you’ll never know which is which based on how we write about them. Free admission to an attraction that’s so affordable that we’d just as soon pay it outright, let’s face it, there’s no incentive for us to lie.
And yet, we still perpetuate a legacy of only reviewing events and attractions in a positive light. It’s not that all publicly available attractions are spectacular, it’s that we’ll only tell the truth, and if we can only find the positive in the places we go, so be it.
But by the time you read this, we’ll be back home, and our trip will be at as much of an undeniable end as our acknowledgement of debate about its validity. So if you run a business, event, attraction or other such newsworthy item in Seattle (our hometown) consider this your wakeup call to pay us our heed, invite us to check out your place of business, and get a modest rate of favorable publicity about it to boot.
In summary, we haven’t taken any money for any of our reviews ever, not in the distant past, not in the recent past, not in the present and we have no plan to do so in the future (though if you’ve got deep pockets, believe me as sure as we boys are Irish, we’re all ears).
As a reader, rest assured that our reviews come only from a place of truth and love. As a prospective sponsor, consider that we can review your business in a truthful, honest, diligent and yet, regardless, favorable manner.