He can be outrageous and even borderline obscene with the scantily-clad females he features, but for the sixth straight year Tonyskansascity.com, the area’s leading blog published by Tony Botello, has been named the top blog in Kansas City by The Pitch magazine.
It is a well-deserved honor. No blogger even comes close to generating the traffic his site does on a daily basis and he often updates it every day of the week.
For nearly a decade Botello has operated the area’s “go to” blog for breaking news on governmental and civic issues in and around Kansas City. He routinely breaks stories before other media outlets. They often monitor his blog for story ideas.
On his site today Botello was gracious and seemed touched by the latest honor.
“We never think we’re gonna win this deal but TKC READERS are actually some of the most kind and gracious people around who care about the discourse that defines Kansas City politics and culture,” he wrote. “ALL WE REALLY WANT TO NOTE IS: THANK YOU TO PEOPLE WHO VOTED FOR TKC!!!”
He also stressed his real belief that free speech really should be free.
“TKC attempts to champion alternative opinion . . . We try to link and reference all of the stuff that we think defines Kansas City politics and culture and we attempt to offer a space where FREE SPEECH RULES WHEN IT COMES TO THE MOST IMPORTANT TOPICS OF THE DAY while we also try to have a bit of fun . . . Mostly at the expense of the local political elite,” he noted.
“Still, it’s a great privilege to talk to people who care deeply about Kansas City no matter how much we might disagree.”
DAILY WEDGIE
Top award from a cage liner like the ‘pitch’ is a dubious honor at best, but kudos to TKC, anyways.
He gives this cow town a daily wedgie like no other.
THANK YOU
This is my first comment on BLC and there will be many more . . . Just wanted to say THANK YOU for the write-up John and (once again) this post captures EXACTLY how a local media event went down.
ANALYZING PITCH SELECTIONS
Let’s see now, the contest was conducted by The Pitch, which is generally what I do with it, and can I assume that most of the voters were males naturally attracted to pictures of scantily-clad females, and if so were they voting with their brain or some other body part? Moreover, as I recall, TKC was sued a while back because of some bad information Tony got from someone that eventually appeared online, forcing him to apologize to the offended party. With me, accuracy tops Internet “hits” every day of the week. And if local media outlets are indeed monitoring TKC for story ideas, that’s pretty disturbing but a fitting commentary on the sad state of journalism today.
When you are writing 15 to 20 stories a day by yourself mistakes can occur, particularly when you are routinely breaking stories. With the amount of writing Tony does each day without an editor to assist him he does a remarkable job. tonyskansascity is a community asset.
NOT 15 STORIES A DAY
John, please. Let’s give Tony all the credit he deserves, but he doesn’t write “15 to 20 stories a day.”
What Tony does is that he monitors other local news Web sites, then draws attention to and links to the ones he finds interesting. That’s not a bad thing, but it is certainly not “15 to 20 stories a day” of original reporting.
And on those relatively rare occasions when Tony attempts to do original reporting, the results can be embarrassingly bad, such as with his ongoing fascination with Tracy Ward and her band of Libertarians.
LOWER STANDARDS
The fact that his ‘blog’ was named #1 six times in a row really shows how much people have lowered their standards, these days. That blog is nothing but race baiting, woman objectifying trash.