Travel Writer Taken to Task Over a Cheeto

At .6 ounces, though, it’s a really big Cheeto. But is it the world’s biggest? That’s the $.89 question. Chicago Tribune writer Mike Conklin ventured to Sister Sarah’s Restaurant in Algona, Iowa, and wrote a short piece about the famed roadside attraction. In his piece, he did some math to put the size of the Cheeto into perspective, and that’s where he ran into problems with Edward B. Colby of CJR Daily, the online publication of the Columbia Journalism Review.

Colby writes: “[U]sing Conklin’s example—with 40 Cheetos in an entire bag totaling 26.125 ounces—the average Cheeto weighs .653125 ounces, or more than the prized specimen . . . on display in Sister Sarah’s Restaurant in Algona.” As a math-challenged travel writer, I recuse myself from comment.

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