Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

According to Wikipedia, the snake oil peddler became a stock character in Western movies: a travelling "doctor" with dubious credentials, selling some medicine (such as snake oil) with boisterous marketing hype, often supported by pseudo-scientific evidence, typically bogus. To enhance sales, an accomplice in the crowd (a "shill") would often "attest" the value of the product in an effort to provoke buying enthusiasm.

The Tampa Downtown Partnership (TDP) commissioned the Downtown Tampa Workforce and Residential Study.  The Tampa Tribune’s A1 front / above the fold / lead teaser offers stats about "people living in downtown" from the recently unveiled survey, and opens the teaser with "Now that these residents are settled in…"

Fortunately, we also have the St. Pete Times, who took the time to separate the facts from the bullsh*t.  The stats quoted on the Tribune’s front page are made up of mostly people who DO NOT LIVE downtown.  In fact, less than 30% live in the core area:

Of the 212 who responded to the residential part of the study, only 63 actually live in downtown or the Channel District. The rest — 149, about two-thirds of the total — hail from Harbour Island, Hyde Park, Ybor City, Bayshore and South Howard, neighborhoods that are a far walk from downtown.

So much for Elements of Journalism at the Tribune. The TDP trots out the dung, and the Tribune serves it up on a dish.