Really, that's what this article says to you?

Sometime folks look at others who are not doing so well and decide to pick up the tab, or just feel like doing it for a complete stranger. Some of its religion, some of it is just spreading the wealth. Sometime its just looking at others in bad situations. Sometimes its just to make themselves feel better.

I've done it a couple of times. I payed for a young lady at a McDonalds because their credit card machine was out and she didn't have cash and had a kid with her. No big deal for me, but I would imagine it helped her day. I've bought one of the pink coffee mugs (breast cancer awareness) and told the clerk to give it to the next lady who comes in. I got to see the reaction, but she never knew who bought it.

Spread a little joy, the world's a circle and it comes back to you.

"If you think this is paranoid, you don't know how our world works."

No, I just find it sad that you believe the dark corners of the world define the whole.

It's not that he doesn't believe this happens, but rather that the presence of a story about it in NYT where chick-fil-a is mentioned directly in the first paragraph is not an accidental matter. Chick-fil-a being the main restaurant talked about in a feel good article like this is great PR for them, discounting the possibility of it having been arranged deliberately just because the op was overly cynical is a bit petulant. PR is almost never about making things up, but rather the timing and the tone and the things mentioned in the periphery of the story. PR firms know that a straight-up story on how chick-fil-a is great is not likely to do much for them with world-weary americans, but a feel good story about people helping each other (which may very well have happened) with chick-fil-a strategically placed just in the background is great.

Given the leanings of the NYT, I cannot imagine a feel good article about Chick-Fil-A will ever appear in their pages because of money. They have refused advertising several times because it doesn't jive with their editorial policy.

[edit] also see Natsu's comment for an additional thought against it being an ad for Chick-Fil-A.

You can't believe it would happen for money, but you'd believe it'd happen for free? Anyway, PR is far more complex and subtle than "I give money, you write article". Someone posted a pg essay below that might be instructive.

As to why I think this might (I make no claims to certainty) be a PR-influenced article:

1. Chick-fil-a is mentioned in the first paragraph, no other restaraunt is mentioned until the fourth.

2. The first 3 paragraphs are a visceral imagining of what it would be like to be part of a "pay-it-forward" chain at a chick-fil-a specifically, complete with giggling cashier. Other restaurants are mentioned only in an detached and objective manner.

3. There's a direct quote in paragraph 5 from the chick-fil-a "director of hospitality", the only other quote from a restaurant owner is from a smaller local shop 3 or 4 paragraphs down. The chick-fil-a representative’s quote is a comment on the value and reasoning behind pay-it-forward, the other's is simply a factual one about a lady at his store that does it.

4. Getting a bit more abstract here, but this is exactly the kind of ideal that chick-fil-a probably wants to be associated with, "good-old down home people helping each other out small town america &c.". Note the jab at starbucks at the end?

5. Like op said, chick-fil-a took a bit of a beating in the press awhile ago. People might not remember what happened exactly, but they probably came away with a slightly worse impression of chick-fil-a. If PR was involved in this article then it's probably to try and repair that damage.

You so desperately want this to be a nefarious PR job.

Why was Chick-fil-a mentioned first? (Puts on Sherlock Holmes cap.)

1. Maybe the writer was fishing for pageviews?

2. Maybe the writer wanted an eye-catching lead? Aggregators pick up the first sentence.

3. Is it a coincidence this is trending on a Sunday after millions of Christians just ate Chick-fil-a after church? How many priests/pastors injected this story into the sermon today? How many Christian moms did a "share by email" on this? A ton!

4. Sometimes these stories take months to write. Maybe the writer first discovered the phenomena via a Chick-fil-a related conversation.

5. A good article must have quotes. It's possible the Chick-fil-a quote came first which got the always-difficult first paragraph rolling.

6. Maybe this was an underhanded jab at Chick-fil-a patrons. "See, it's not just chicken-eating Christians that are generous." NYT's political slant is no secret.

7. Maybe the writer just likes the chicken? Is that so far-fetched? LOL.

Those are just as plausible, if not more plausible, in my opinion.

>You so desperately want this to be a nefarious PR job. And you seem to desperately want me to be some bitter chick-fil-a hater. IF chick-fil-a was involved in the writing of this piece then it's nothing more than what hundreds of other companies do everyday, PR involvement is an integral part of the modern press. I may not like it but I would not call it "nefarious". I'm not commenting because I have a hate-on for chick-fil-a but because there seems to be a lot of wilful ignorance here on just how much the media we consume is manipulated by PR.

On to your points:

1. I don't really see why chick-fil-a would get more pageviews than another restaurant so I'll skip this.

2. Of course the writer wants an effective opening, but the "you're part of a pay-it-forward line" fantasy could have easily been written at a generic restaurant.

3. Other people have said it but chick-fil-a is closed on sundays. Also I don't really get what this has to do with how and why the author wrote the story.

4. I'm pretty sure a fluff piece on people paying for each other's fast food didn't take a month to write. And I think the author probably did discover the phenomenon after a chick-fil-a related conversation, one with a chick-fil-a sponsored PR representative.

5. It's impossible to say assuredly whether any article was PR influenced but that quote seemed awfully convenient.

6. You seem to be very concerned with christianity when no-one else has mentioned it, least of all the article. I would not personally assume that chick-fil-a patrons are particularly christian, it seems strange to me that this is immediately the thing you jump to. Same thing goes with the source's political leanings, I don't consider fast food to be a political matter and I don't think NYT or chick-fil-a do either.

7. Sure, but if that's the case it's interesting that most of the other restaurants mentioned are coffee shops and a bagel cafe (which aren't really chick-fil-a competitiors) rather than popeyes or mary brown's.

so in conclusion:

1. I'm right

2. You seem to weirdly have tied up a fast-food restaurant into some christian right wing identity you hold and it's preventing you from acknowledging the very really possibility of PR manipulation in an NYT fluff piece.

I won't respond to all of that but I think we can both agree the business of news is interesting. Also I'm fascinated by the PR world and no, I don't have much experience in that area. My perspective is more pageviews & software oriented. How the New York Times operates, how the editors make decisions, it would be fun to be a fly on the wall there. I bet they're ripping out their hair trying to keep up with the pace of the Internet.

Anyway, you made me look it up because I wasn't sure exactly what happened. As far as I can tell, this is what started the Chick-fil-a controversy. I believe this is the full text - http://www.bpnews.net/BPnews.asp?ID=38271

In particular, near the end of the interview:

"We are very much supportive of the family -- the biblical definition of the family unit. We are a family-owned business, a family-led business, and we are married to our first wives. We give God thanks for that."

Which I suppose is why you think they need ongoing PR help in the New York Times. My first wife, we won't talk about her! LOL.

Chick-fil-a is closed on Sundays. all Sundays. every Sunday.

Chick-fil-a is actually closed on Sunday :)

indeed. journalists: even good ones, are under pressure for time and stories, and will often take excellent copy from a crafty PR verbatim. Such is capitalism.

It's not indeed (protomyth below) a matter of journalist or NYT deliberately giving column advertising to this company, but more the PR-fu of getting them to mention them anyway by feeding them the story in the right way, knowing that the journos will want to feel independent and objective. Clever PR people, upright journalists...

(I couldn't see a reply button on your comment just now, and now I see there is one. weird)

pg wrote about the art of carefully disguised PR campaigns: http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

That article was originally about me and was wrong. So there's that.

He also mentioned that they were never able to crack the New York Times :)

That was, however, some time ago.

Also, that Viaweb never made it to the New York Times doesn't mean that nobody then did. Note the first sentence of the essay ;)

Ha, great point! I had based my comment on memory.

Also, worth mentioning that while I don't want to be overly cynical, this article does sound like a brilliant PR campaign. Given the size of typical PR budgets, you could afford a lot of free fast-food lunches for people.

There are hundreds of stories about various companies on hn. The fact that you single out this one says more about your liberal bias than its objective "fakeness".

He didn't say anything about liberals, conservatives or Chick-fil-a's noxious gay marriage positions. Who's biased?

The article mentions chick-fil-a by name 3 times in the text and at the bottom, it's one of 3 terms that you can sign up for email alerts about. This is right after they had a run of bad publicity (yes, caused by politics, but that's irrelevant). Seems to fit in the PR-created article category to me.

Actually he did refer to how Chick-fil-a "stepped in deep shit".

I took that as a statement of fact (akin to "Chick-fil-a faced a public relations disaster ...") rather than a value judgement.

It's a fact? I heard Chick-fil-a stores had record sales after your so-called "deep shit PR disaster."

Agreed, but I think it's indicative of a liberal bias, or at least living in a liberal bubble, to place so much weight on something that most people have long forgotten about (especially the kind of person who eats there).

And the post I was responding to claimed that these things weren't even mentioned by the top poster, which they clearly were.

You mention "chick fil-a PR", and that's going to be the first thing that comes to mind. Total self-inflicted wound on their part, whatever your personal politics.

I specifically address this point when I say that it's only a minority of people who would even remember that controversy. Would you care to address this line of argument?

I just did. You remembered it, and with passion. You knew exactly what the parenthetical (they stepped in it) was talking about. So did everyone else on the thread.

You disprove your own argument.

There may be hundreds of stories about various companies, but they aren't like this one. It seemed to be about generosity, and only tangentially about Chick-Fil-A, but I couldn't help (1) imagining myself being generous in my local Chick-Fil-A drive-through and (2) imagining myself feeling the warmth of someone else's generosity at my local Chick-Fil-A drive-through (which I've never experienced in real life).

I agree with you, based on personal experience this happens, a lot. In the organizations I have been with, not everyone in the company even know it was a planted piece.

I don't know about that, but I do know that the only time I have had a pay-forward experience was at Chick-fil-A. And it was fun!

The article mentions a dozen different restaurants. Why do you believe this was Chick-fil-a rather than one of the others?

Well, they are mentioned in the first sentence, and repeatedly returned to throughout. Any of the other restaurants are done in group references, without being singled out. My suspicion was up as the entire first person framing of the article began, pulling the reader into this fantasy reality where fast food meals are paid for by strangers. Perhaps its the lack of any point to the article. Sure, I can accept human interest articles, but that one smells to fishy.

> this fantasy reality where fast food meals are paid for by strangers

This is not a fantastical practice. While it is not particularly common, I've heard of it quite a few times (most of which had nothing to do with Chick-fil-A) and have done similar things myself.

Probably true, except for the part about chicfila staff trolling HN.

I would have thought so too, until meeting some recent college graduates who did exactly that for a LA based PR firm. HR specifically was one of their 'influence sites' they made sure to hit.

Don't be so cynical. They're just hacking the press.

It could be a made up story, but there is a drive through coffee place in Michigan where this happens every so often. they even have a radio station sometimes coordinate it sometimes to see how long a chain they can get going.

Unbelievably sad.