An average day for a journalist involves a myriad of activities [or “myriad activities” is also acceptable. One of the activities is parsing language.].

If there were a pie chart for how reporters spend their day, however, the biggest slice of pie would be for dealing with email.

One of the things I enjoy doing is sitting at my desk each morning and deleting a bunch of emails without reading them. I don’t do that with beloved public relations associates I’ve met in real life, mind you. They might have something to say about an issue that actually affects someone who lives in the Dallas-Fort Worth area [or Planet Earth. You’d be surprised how many press releases reporters get from PR firms pitching a story that wouldn’t affect anyone on Planet Earth.].

Reporters get a lot of results from surveys and studies.

Which brings us to a press release I received about Easter.

WalletHub sends approximately 75 reports each week with vital information about where Dallas ranks on various lists. They do include links to other information, though. Part of me feels bad for the reporter who hasn’t heard of the “resurrection of Jesus Christ” and needed this link to more information about it. Another part of me was surprised that 10 million egg dyeing kits will be sold this year. I had no idea what a key role egg dyeing plays in our economy.

Normally, I would delete a WalletHub report, but “Best Cities to Celebrate Easter” caught my eye. I had suspected Calvary wouldn’t make the list, but I was wondering the methodology that placed Dallas in the top 20, but Fort Worth was way down the list at 63, Plano is 89, Irving is 94 overall, Arlington is 95 and Garland’s bringing up the rear at 99, just one step ahead of those heathens in Hialeah, Florida.

Dallas isn’t the best, mind you, just in the top 20. I got a handsome press release for a middle of the road city and some outliers, one of which has the worst Easter weather in the country.

I question the methodology.

How exactly did WalletHub calculate the number of Easter Egg Hunts per capita? Was there a fella with a green visor sitting at an adding machine, sighing loudly as he crunched the numbers with a bottle of whiskey sitting on the desk?

Most of the other categories seem okay. It’d be simple enough to figure out how much of the population is Christian or how many churches a city has per capita.

But are there entire restaurants just for brunch? I get some places are only open for breakfast and lunch, but brunch?!

An investigation shows I’ve been to a lot of the places in Fort Worth that serve the best brunch, but they don’t identify as brunch restaurants, just restaurants that happen to serve brunch.

In conclusion, I’m sure PR people do the same thing, deleting emails from me without reading them. The system works!