Vince Mancini, The Future of Fresno's Food Journalism

Vince Mancini is back on Fresno's Best to talk about food. 

Vince has been covering food for Fresnoland, and his reporting on Bulle, the city's buzzy new fine-dining spot, set off one of the more heated local food fights in recent memory. He went in to write a review, liked the food, and then started hearing from employees about bounced paychecks and unpaid vendors. The pushback that followed raises the question at the center of this episode: does "backing Fresno" mean staying quiet when a local business goes wrong? We dig into a widely shared post arguing that critics should give struggling businesses room to make things right, and ask who's left out of that argument, starting with the workers.

We also get into:

• Whether food influencers are really just unlabeled ad agencies, and why they all have to chew directly at the camera
• Why chasing "the best" is ruining restaurants, and the case that a great burger stops being a burger
• The gutting The Fresno Bee and what's left of local reporting
• The different economies in the comment secitons
• Rotten Tomatoes, review slop, and why reviews need real voices again