Today in visual journalism: 'Dive bar stock photo'

Quick, what's the best way to get a little free publicity for your website? Make a list of "the NN most RR in ZZ" and wait for some news director to say "Hey, we made the list!"

Leave aside the obvious -- how the judging is done, and whether something called impulcity.com is going to have the same operational definition of "dive" that you or Raymond Chandler or the Bottle Rockets might have. Gaze upon the cutline:

"Dive bar stock photo."

And as 2014 draws to a close, the best a news operation can do to illustrate a PR person's idea of a dive bar is a filer of somebody else's idea of a dive bar. Divewise, these are trying times.