
Go to the grocery store every day. Several of them. Seriously - dankohn1
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/you-should-go-to-the-grocery-store-every-day-several-of-them-seriously/2020/01/02/4632eafa-2c16-11ea-9b60-817cc18cf173_story.html
======
kick
I upmodded this not because the content is good (it's kind of disturbing in
most ways because consumerism-as-comfort is inherently so, though the core
advice is sound), but because it highlights an oddity in publishing I've
noticed recently.

So this person is an executive at an advertising agency (it undersells him
somewhat in the _Post_ 's author's bio box).

What's his motive? He doesn't have to have one, of course, so let's put that
as an option. Does his agency work with consumer goods businesses? You check
their website, and the answer is "yes." So another possibility, then, is that
his agency works with large grocery store chains or similar.

You look at his most recent posting on _that_ site, and it's a hit piece on a
(fairly bad, actually) business aimed at the same demographic his agency
claims to be able to target. In it, he also recommends the demographic in
question goes, shops, and makes food themselves.

Sketchy so far, you think.

But then you look at his other posts on the WWW for this sort of thing.

Almost exclusively, they're about how others should buy and prepare their own
meals. He's been on this beat for at _least_ seven years and probably more: he
had an op-ed in _The New York Times_ on exactly this in 2013.

At this point, it gets close to impossible to figure out if it's some odd
attempt at content marketing (likely, given that's what his company claims to
do), or just a fun obsession (also likely, given his monofocus).

I've been noticing this thing more and more when I read more or less any op-
ed. It's fascinating to me.

~~~
perl4ever
Following people who have a niche they're into can be a reaction to
distrusting journalists in general. They aren't fungible.

