Standard operating procedure for hack writers. Say something controversial, even borderline idiotic, and write a long article about it. This encourages a lot of angry communiqués to the editor, editor is supposed to conclude that his writer has a lot of people reading. Mark Twain covered this in how I edited a small town agricultural newspaper or some such title.
Agree. Mike Sutton is our local food snob/critic.He routinely writes about restaurants nobody goes to and those that have closed because nobody went there.