DailyNewsGems

Most Viewed Online Stories of 2023

People salvage some belongings from a damaged building following Israeli bombing on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

Photo Credit: Said Khatib/AFP/Getty Images

***

What have been the biggest stories of the year?

Ever since the first week of October, the Israeli-Hamas war has consumed the bulk of the news cycle in 2023.

On October 7, more than 1,200 Israelis and foreign nationals, mostly civilians, were killed and 248 taken hostage during the initial attack on Israel from the Gaza strip. 

A few days later, Israel announced a "complete siege" on the Gaza Strip, home to 2.3 million people. The Gaza Strip is 25-miles long, bounded by the Mediterranean Sea to the west, Israel to the north and east and Egypt to the south. Gaza is one of two Palestinian territories; the other is the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

As of December 10, the bloody Israel-Hamas war has resulted in over 19,000 Palestinians and Israeli deaths, including 63 journalists (56 Palestinian, 4 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) and over 100 deaths of workers from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). 

While the war in Gaza rages on, there has been a series of bloody wars back on American soil, mostly involving salvos exchanged between Republicans and Democrats.

Donald Trump became the first former president to be indicted for a crime when a grand jury in Manhattan voted (March 30) to charge him with 34 counts of falsifying business records in order to cover up “hush money” payments to help with his 2016 election campaign.

Trump on June 8 was indicted, yet again, this time in federal court for mishandling what were believed to be classified documents and blocking to investigate missing documents. The indictments were issued soon after federal agents raided the former president’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida and confiscated dozens of boxes, some of which might have included top-secret documents from his time in office.

Recently, Joe Biden and his family have absorbed some punishing blows.

On December 7, a federal grand jury returned a nine-count indictment charging President Biden’s son, Hunter, with three felony tax offenses and six misdemeanor tax offenses.

And most recently, the House voted to formally open an impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden with hopes of strengthening their oversight powers as Republicans continue to investigate the Biden family’s finances. Biden roundly dismissed the impeachment inquiry as nothing more than a “baseless political stunt.”

As I do every year, in order to get an idea of some of the most popular or widely read stories of the year, I checked in with some news organizations to ask what story generated the most page views on their websites.

Below, are the results.

Damar Hamlin, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed after making a tackle and went into cardiac arrest.

Photo Credit: Dylan Buell/Getty Images

***

CNN

On January 2, 2023, during a Monday Night Football game against the Cincinnati Bengals, Damar Hamlin, 24, a safety for the Buffalo Bills, collapsed on the field at 8:56 p.m. EST after tackling wide receiver Tee Higgins, which required immediate emergency medical treatment. It was later revealed that he had suffered a cardiac arrest (causing his heart to stop) and was in critical condition. The game was suspended and eventually cancelled altogether, making it the first time since the 1987 players’ strike that an NFL game had been cancelled. Hamlin made a full recovery.

FOX News

Republican, Kevin McCarthy, was elected House Speaker, finally, on the 15^th ballot, a record, after a punishing four days of voting.

FOX Business

Bud Light’s choice of being inclusive by allowing transgender TikToker Dylan Mulvaney to promote the beer in an Instagram video (April 1) commemorating March Madness was met with a fierce right-wing backlash, sparking a conservative boycott from commentators and celebrities and causing sales of the nation’s popular beer to plummet.

NOTE: Fox News additionally reports that their Anti-Semitism Exposed page has generated 10.1 million pageviews through November 30, 2023.

Los Angeles Times

The shocking death of former Friends’ star, Matthew Perry, 54, who was found dead in his hot tub at his Los Angeles home.

The Telegraph (UK)

Reports of Vladimir Putin preparing to attack the UK.

FBI

The top 2023 FBI story on FBI.gov was the Chinese high-altitude balloon recovery, which was shot down by the U.S. military off the coast of South Carolina on February 5.

Boston Globe

The Boston Globe explored why so many Cape Cod vacation rentals remain vacant heading into the summer?

NOTE: Aside from the most-read single article, the Globe generated lots of traffic in their ongoing investigation of the Charles and Carol Stuart shooting. The extraordinary story by their prize-winning investigative team report on Carol Stuart being murdered on October 23, 1989, by her husband, Charles "Chuck" Stuart, who initially tried to pin the blame on a Black man who he claims carjacked their car in Boston and shot both his wife and himself. 

The Globe’s ongoing developments of the Massachusetts housing crisis has additionally attracted a huge amount of traffic.

Miami Herald

The Miami Herald’s most widely read article involved a 49-year-old St. Augustine woman, who was initially pulled over by a police officer for a seat-belt violation, only to find fentanyl, cocaine, methamphetamine, hashish, and other drug paraphernalia in her leggings.

Chicago Tribune

“Dale Wheatley, who performs deliveries for the Anatomical Gift Association of Illinois, came into work two weeks ago and found sage burning and three severed heads lying on a plastic container by his desk.”

New York Magazine

How to text, tip, ghost, host, and generally exist in polite society today.

Vox

The alarming revelations of four University of Idaho students who were found dead (viciously stabbed while they were sleeping in an off-campus townhouse) on November 13, 2022 in Moscow, Idaho.

ProPublica

For over 20 years, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has been treated to luxury vacations by billionaire Republican donor, Harlan Crow, originally published April 6, 2023.

The Marshall Project

“How mental competency laws can trap people with dementia,” an article which was published in partnership with USA Today.

            “In multiple cases reviewed by The Marshall Project, older people with serious dementia were arrested and held for weeks or months in jail. Some were sent back and forth between jail and psychiatric facilities after being found mentally incompetent — transfers that can be traumatic for people with cognitive disorders.”

Open Secrets

TurboTax parent company Intuit is pouring large amounts of money into lobbying amid a push for free government-run tax filing.

         “Mounting scrutiny of TurboTax’s marketing practices and escalating tensions around government-run free filing services thrust Intuit’s history of currying influence in Washington into the spotlight in recent years.”

Most Searched/Read

Google’s Top Searches 2023

A Year on YouTube 2023

A Year on TikT0k 2023

Top 25 New Yorker Stories of 2023

 

--Bill Lucey

[email protected]

December 14, 2023

Most Viewed Online Stories of 2022

People walk near a destroyed tank and damaged buildings in the southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine

Photo Credit: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

***

Floral tributes to the late Queen Elizabeth II are seen in Green Park in London on Sept. 10, 2022, two days after she died at the age of 96.

Photo Credit: AFP

***

Lionel Messi holds up the World Cup trophy after Argentina defeated France in the tournament final on Sunday, December 18^th

^{Photo Credit: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images}

^***

Thankfully, 2022 is almost in the books.

It was a harsh year for the U.S. economy: inflation reached a 40-year high, gas prices shot up to over $5 a gallon in mid-June; similarly, other countries around the globe endured some of their highest inflation rates in years.

The war in Ukraine (the largest armed conflict in Europe since World War II), sparked a worldwide energy crisis, this along with strict Covid policies in China, heightened fears of a global recession.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine additionally triggered the displacement of 15.7 million Ukrainians, including 7.7 million refugees.

To combat the financial headwinds, the world's central banks, for the first time in years, raised interest rates.

The political divisiveness and hostility in the country became all the more pronounced in June when the U.S. Supreme Court reversed the landmark Roe v. Wade (1973), asserting that the constitutional right to abortion, in place for nearly 50 years, is now prohibited.

After 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II, 96, died at Balmoral Castle on September 8. She was the world’s second longest ever reigning monarch. The queen was succeeded by her son, Charles, who assumed the title: King Charles III.

Still tainted by the sign stealing scandal in 2017, the Houston Astros redeemed themselves, at least to some, by winning the World Series, beating the Philadelphia Phillies in six games.

With 25 years as a big-league manager, Astros manager Dusty Baker finally won his first World Series, becoming the seventh person in Major League history to win a World Series championship as both a player (1981 with the L.A. Dodgers) and as manager.

Many argue Argentina’s electrifying win over France in the World Cup final in Doha, Qatar, was the greatest match in its 92-year history, as the second largest country in South America (after Brazil) claimed its third World Cup by beating France on penalty kicks, 4-2, an extraordinary match, that was heightened by Lionel Messi of France scoring twice, catapulting him to rock-star status.

Business magnate and investor, Elon Musk, who bought Twitter for a staggering $44 billion in October, turned the social media tech giant on its head when the new CEO laid off about half of its 7,500 staff and reinstated the Twitter account of Donald Trump who was previously banned by Twitter for “inciting violence.”

In 2022, according to the United Nations, the world population increased to over eight billion; an increase of one billion in global population since 2010 and two billion since 1998. The world reached its first landmark of one billion people in 1803.

To get an idea of some other big stories of the year, I checked in with editors at other news sites to see which stories received the most page views on their home pages.

CNN

Live blog on February 24 covering the war in Ukraine which drew 16 million unique visitors.

Another widely read feature at CNN, centered on Matthew Chance putting on gear in front of a live audience to report the latest drama taking place in Ukraine.

FOX News

Actor Johnny Depp winning his defamation suit against Amber Heard.

Los Angeles Times

Instagram post of rapper PnB Rock at Roscoe’s may have led to killing

Here’s the complete list of top stories of the year from the Times, which includes actor Will Smith slapping comedian Chris Rock at the Academy Awards ceremony. 

Most popular column of Camilla Tominey from The Telegraph (UK)

 Duke and Duchess of Sussex find ‘new role’ is to be left in the cold. 

The Marshall Project

Prison Money Diaries: What People Really Make (and Spend) Behind Bars. 

ProPublica

White Parents Rallied to Chase a Black Educator Out of Town

Open Secrets

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis breaks gubernatorial fundraising record

FBI: Most Popular News Item

FBI Denver Provides Final Investigative Update on Gabrielle Petito Case

Non-News Item at FBI.gov: Ten Most Wanted Fugitives

New York Magazine: Top 5 Features

Meghan of Montecito

The Undoing of Joss Whedon

The Last Lonely Days of Ivana Trump

Take Another Look at the Watcher

What Happened to Maya

New York Review of Books

Letter Feedback regarding "Digging for Utopia" from the December 16, 2021 issue.

Original Post: Digging for Utopia

Most popular non-letter exchange was a tie between Why Biology is not Destiny: and These Disunited States. 

Most popular Online Only Article: How Trump Sabotaged Ukraine

Weather Channel

Winter Storm Izzy

Hurricane Ian

What’s Popping Up on Lake Mead Now

Rare Encounter Stuns Yellowstone Tourists

Watch: Huge Waves Wipe Out Wedding

Social Media:

Facebook Year in Review

Twitter Trends 2022

TikTok and Instagram Trends Reveal New Attitudes for Millennials and Gen Z

Year on TikTok, 2022

LinkedIn: 41 Big Ideas That Will Change Our World in 2023

Google: Year in Searches, 2022

YouTube: 2022

Yahoo: Year in Review

Merry Christmas! Happy Holidays! and have a happy and healthy New Year!

--Bill Lucey

December 18, 2022

[email protected]

Most Viewed Online Stories of 2021

A mob of supporters of then-President Donald Trump climb through a window they broke as they storm the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

Photo Credit: Leah Millis/Reuters

***

Remarkably, most of us made it through 2021 in one piece with our Republic still intact despite an unprecedented Capitol Hill insurrection, which some equate to 9/11.

On January 6, a mob of protesters leaving a Donald Trump rally, upset from the results of the 2020 presidential election, which resulted in a Joe Biden victory, stormed the U.S. Capitol in Washington D.C., the cradle of democracy, and assaulted law enforcement officers, vandalized property and occupied the building for several hours. Five people died, including several being injured before order was restored.

Two days after the insurrection, Twitter suspended Donald Trump’s account in order to prevent any “further incitement of violence. "

Just when we thought we licked Covid-19 after getting our miraculous vaccine shots (the acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus), a Delta variant emerged threatening more lives and leading to more restrictions and safeguarding, including wearing more masks.

Combined with last year’s fatalities, the U.S. is nearing 800,000 deaths from Covid.

“Seventy-five percent of people,” The New York Times recently reported "who have died of the virus in the United States — or about 600,000 of the nearly 800,000 who have perished so far — have been 65 or older. One in 100 older Americans has died from the virus.”

Soon after President Joe Biden was sworn in as the 46^th U.S. President, he made good on his pledge to completely pull U.S. troops out of Afghanistan after 20 years, a senseless engagement (to many) which cost the U.S. $2 trillion (Afghanistan and Iraq combined), with 2,461 U.S. service members killed, 20,000 injured, and another 3,846 U.S. contractors killed.

Despite the cancelling of the Tokyo Olympics last year due to the global pandemic, the Olympics finally took place in Tokyo (July 23-August 8) with the United States earning the most medals: 39 gold medals, 113 in total, while China finished second with 38 gold medals, 88 altogether.

The most disappointing blemish on the Summer Games was that no international guests (including spectators) were permitted to attend the Games, due to COVID travel restrictions.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, right, prepares to board a helicopter with his daughter Michaela Cuomo after announcing his resignation, Tuesday, Aug. 10, 2021, in New York.

Photo Credit: AP Photo/Seth Wenig

***

Unquestionably, one of the most scandalous stories of the year that splashed across many page one headlines was New York Governor Andrew Cuomo resigning his office (August 10) soon after New York Attorney General Letitia James released a report that found that the New York Governor sexually harassed 11 women, and according to the damning report, created a "hostile  work environment.” 

Before recessing for the Thanksgiving holiday, President Biden witnessed the successful passage of his ambitious infrastructure bill (“Build Back Better”) in Congress, which he described as a “once-in-generation investment in America.”

After a razor thin vote in the House of Representatives on November 5 (228-206) the infrastructure bill will invest hundreds of dollars to upgrade physical infrastructure, including roads and bridges, railways, airports, and water systems. The plan additionally invests tens of billions of dollars to modernize the U.S. electrical grid, aggressively embrace electric vehicles, and significantly expand broadband internet access.

The great Tom Brady clearly proved he’s the Eveready Battery of professional sports, who at age 43, won his seventh Super Bowl ring, leading the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to a convincing 31-9 pounding  of the Kansas City Chiefs in Super Bowl LV (55) at Raymond James Stadium in Tampa Bay, Florida. It was the first time in Super Bowl history a team has won in its home stadium.

So, those are just a brief assortment of the most dominating stories of the year.

To get an idea what stories interested readers the most in 2021, I checked in with some major news organizations to see what articles drove the most traffic to their home pages.

Here’s the list of news organizations who responded to my email.

CNN: January 6 Insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

CNN’s Top Video: Surfside, Florida Building Collapse

Los Angeles Times: Tracking the Coronavirus in California 

Fox News: Democrat Jon Ossoff Projected to win Georgia Senate Runoff Election over Republican David Perdue

Open Secrets: Trump’s Political Operation Paid More than $3.5 million to January 6 Organizers

ProPublica: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax

The Marshall Project: The Controversial Version of the U.S. Flag has been Hailed as a Sign of Police Solidarity and Criticized as a Symbol of White Supremacy

Fortune: A Shock is Headed for the U.S. Housing Market

ESPN: Tiger Woods Recovering from Lengthy Surgery to Repair Significant Injuries to Right Leg

Weather Channel: Hurricane Ida: New Orleans to New Jersey

Texas Freeze

Hurricane Elsa

Western Wildfires

Megadrought in the West

Yahoo News: Trump Supporters Storm Congress, Halting Electoral Vote Certification Debate

Google: Year in Searches

Google: Top Trending News and Searches for the U.S. and Globally

GLOBAL: 

Searches 

1. Australia vs India
2. India vs England
3. IPL
4. NBA
5. Euro 2021
6. Copa América
7. India vs New Zealand
8. T20 World Cup
9. Squid Game
10. DMX

News: 

1. Afghanistan
2. AMC Stock
3. COVID Vaccine
4. Dogecoin
5. GME Stock
6. Stimulus Check
7. Georgia Senate Race
8. Hurricane Ida
9. COVID
10. Ethereum Price

U.S. Searches

1. NBA
2. DMX
3. Gabby Petito
4. Kyle Rittenhouse
5. Brian Laundrie
6. Mega Millions
7. AMC Stock
8. Stimulus Check
9. Georgia Senate Race
10. Squid Game

News 

1. Mega Millions
2. AMC Stock
3. Stimulus Check
4. Georgia Senate Race
5. GME
6. Dogecoin
7. Hurricane Ida
8. Kyle Rittenhouse Verdict
9. Afghanistan
10. Ethereum Price

Source: Global Communications and Public Affairs at Google

Twitter: Year-in-Review:

Tik-Tok Year-in-Review 

Meta (formerly Facebook): Widely Viewed Content Report: What People See on Facebook

Linkedin Year-in-Review: Data Facts

Spotify Year-in-Review

---Bill Lucey

[email protected]

December 13, 2021

 

The Most Viewed Online Articles in 2020

Photo Credit: USA Today Network

***

Thankfully, 2020, is nearing its painful end.

Americans were shocked to their core when they learned that Hall of Fame NBA player Kobe Bryant on Sunday, January 26, was killed in a helicopter crash in Calabasas, California, while in route from John Wayne Airport to Camarillo Airport. Nine people were on board: retired professional basketball player Kobe Bryant, his 13 year-old daughter Gianna, baseball coach John Altobelli, five other passengers, and the pilot.  No one survived the crash

The Kobe Bryant tragedy was truly a foretaste of what a horrible year it would be.

Worldwide, a respiratory tract infection struck like a horrifying tidal wave.

On January 20^th, a 35-year-old man returning from China contracted the first case of Coronavirus.

On March 13, President Trump declared coronavirus a national emergency; and on April 3, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended everyone to consider wearing a cloth or fabric face masks in public.

How deadly was coronavirus?

In the United States, there were 319,000 deaths from COVID-19 as of December 21. Worldwide, there have been 1.7 million deaths from the coronavirus.

COVID-19 surpassed heart disease as the leading cause of death in the United States, according to the CDC. Practically the same number of Americans died from the disease each day as did the number killed in the September 11 terror attacks or the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Small wonder, then, that 2020 was declared the Year of the Nurse and Midwife by the World Health Organization (WHO).

In practical terms, 2020 was a year that never was.

Most celebrated events and annual rituals were cancelled due to the virus, which included the Tokyo Games (Summer Olympics), the Wimbledon tennis tournament, NASCAR racing, the NCAA men and women’s Division I basketball tournaments, and St Patrick’s Day parades in both Dublin, Ireland and Boston. In addition, most museums slammed their doors shut, including the Louvre Museum in Paris, while the Cannes Film Festival, and the Rolling Stones North American tour were abruptly cancelled.

Both the NBA and MLB postponed their seasons and returned with reduced schedules.

On October 11, the Lakers defeated the Miami Heat to capture a record-tying 17th NBA title ; and on Oct. 27 in MLB, The Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the Tampa Bay Rays to win the team’s first World Series title since 1988.

The economic impact due to the coronavirus was crippling. The United States slipped into a recession, the largest economic recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s.

Not surprisingly, President Donald Trump dominated most of the news cycle and Twitter posts during 2020, never more so than during his impeachment trial that began on January 16 and ended on February 5, when he was acquitted on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress . Trump was accused of pressuring Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky to announce investigations into former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr in exchange for nearly $400 million in vital military assistance.

The year ended with Trump losing in his quest for a second presidential term. On November 3, Democrat Joe Biden, 77, with 306 electoral votes defeated President Donald Trump to become the 46th president of the United States. Barack Obama’s VP received more than 78 million votes across the country — the most votes cast for any presidential candidate in history.

2020 didn’t pass without major racial strife.

On May 25, a Minneapolis police officer (Derek Chauvin) was filmed pressing his knee on the neck of George Floyd, a 46-year-old African-American male, for more than eight minutes, killing him, as three other officers stood by.

Chauvin was charged with third-degree murder and manslaughter; the Minnesota attorney general increased the charge to second-degree murder on June 3. Charges against three other fired officers were also filed.

The unconscionable act by the Minneapolis police officer sparked protests across 100 cities around the world. Other demonstrations were held on June 6 to voice protests against systemic racism and police brutality.

Despite the historic recession and rising unemployment from COVID-19, there were a few, those happy few, doing extremely well financially.

In August, Forbes Magazine reported that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos became the first person in history to have a net worth exceeding $200 billion. During the same month, Apple Inc., the multinational technology company, became the first U.S. company to be valued at over $2 trillion.

The year ended on an especially sad note when longtime Jeopardy host, Alex Trebek, 80, died on November 8, following his long battle with pancreatic cancer.

On December 11, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorized emergency use of the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech, providing a glimmer of hope that the deadly virus will be eliminated in the months ahead.

To get a sense of what major stories sparked the interest of readers during the year, I asked some news organizations and popular websites which story drew the most traffic.

What follows is a collection of the most viewed online articles in 2020.

CNN

Tracking Covid-19 Cases in the U.S.

Election 2020 Presidential Results

L.A. Times

Federal Investigators Look for Answers in Kobe Bryant Helicopter Crash. 

Tampa Bay Times

Tom Brady arriving in Tampa Bay and staying at Derek Jeter’s mansion 

Florida coronavirus cases are growing fast. Here’s what that means.

The Telegraph (U.K.)

Exclusive: Government Scientist Neil Ferguson Resigns After Breaking Lockdown Rules to Meet His Married Lover

Financial Times

Coronavirus Tracker

The Economist

The US 2020 election results: The Economist’s breakdown of the votes for the president, Senate and House of Representatives

FOX NEWS

Coronavirus in the US: State-by-state breakdown

AXIOS

Scoop: Trump’s Plan to Declare Premature Victory

Politico

Coronavirus Will Change the World Permanently: Here’s How

Buzzfeed

Non-Americans Are Sharing the Bizarre Things that Americans Think are Normal and It’s Surprising

The Marshall Project

The Short, Fraught History of the ‘Thin Blue Line’ American Flag

ProPublica

A Medical Worker Describes Terrifying Lung Failure From COVID-19 — Even in His Young Patients

Tracking PPP Loans:  Search Every Company Approved for Federal Loans Over $150k

OpenSecrets.org

Senate Intel chair unloaded stocks in mid-February before coronavirus rocked markets

FBI

FBI Seeking Assistance Connecting Victims to Samuel Little’s Confessions 

Ten Most Wanted Fugitives

New Yorker

Top 25 Stories of 2020

New York Magazine

Buying Myself Back: When Does a Model Own Her Own Image

How the Coronavirus Could Take Over Your Body (Before You Ever Feel It)

New York Review of Books

The Sickness in Our Food Supply

ESPN

Kobe Bryant, daughter Gianna die in helicopter crash

Weather Channel

Aerial View of Devastation Along Louisiana’s Coast from Hurricane Laura

Watch Man in Russia Cheat Death

 

--Bill Lucey

December 21, 2020

[email protected]

Year in Review: Most Viewed Stories of 2019

Speaker Nancy Pelosi begins formal impeachment proceedings against President Trump.

Photo Credit: Erin Schaff/The New York Times

***

Another year has almost passed, and the earth, lo and behold, hasn’t crumbled under our feet.

But the year didn’t pass before some pronounced rumblings, especially in Hong Kong, beginning in June, when the government introduced an anti-extradition bill, which would have allowed criminal suspects to be transferred to mainland China. The bill (later withdrawn) sparked outrage, with residents taking to the streets in violent protests, burning a Chinese flag, blocking roads and throwing petrol bombs at riot police, who responded in kind with volleys of tear gas. After five months of raging protests, two deaths have been reported.

Prior to the Hong Kong protests, in central London, back in March, citizens protested against Brexit (withdrawal from the European Union EU), calling for another EU referendum. Marchers expressed bitter anger with the vote (June, 2016 referendum) and claimed to have been ‘’sold down the river.”

In October, again, protesters, as many as a million strong, gathered outside the Palace of Westminster with chants of “No Brexit!”

The stalemate over Brexit forced British Prime Minister Theresa May to resign as leader of the Conservative Party on June 7. After beating Jeremy Hunt to become leader of the Conservative Party, Boris Johnson, former mayor of London, became the new Prime Minister on July 24^th

Calamity hit Paris in April, during Holy Week no less, when a major fire engulfed the medieval Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one of France’s most sacred landmarks. Firefighters bravely fought through more than five hours of rising flames in which the 850-year-old cathedral’s spire and two-thirds of its roof were destroyed; but the two iconic 226-foot bell towers, thankfully, remained intact. 

President Donald Trump, as can be expected, was at center of a storm in 2019, this time a constitutional storm over whether he should be impeached for withholding military aid to Ukraine unless the Eastern European country investigated corruption charges against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter. Such a quid pro quo or abuse of power amounted to an impeachable offense, at least in the eyes of a majority of Democrats. Most Republicans argued Trump’s quid pro quo phone call was highly inappropriate, but didn’t rise to the level of an impeachable offense.

On December 5, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi asked the House Judiciary Committee to begin drafting Articles of Impeachment against U.S. President Donald Trump.

Talk of impeachment clearly overshadowed the release of the Mueller Report in March in which Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigated Russian interference in the 2016 Presidential election to determine whether there was a conspiracy or coordination between the Russians and Donald Trump, which raised alarming questions of obstruction of justice.

The Mueller Report included references to 14 criminal investigations that were referred to other offices. On the topic of obstruction of justice, the report stated that the investigation "did not establish that the President was involved in an underlying crime related to Russian election interference," but the same report did note that obstruction of justice could still occur "regardless of whether a person committed an underlying wrong.”

In preparation for the upcoming bruising 2020 U.S. Presidential election, Twitter publicly announced it was not accepting any political advertisements worldwide.

Once again, the year was stained by mass shootings. In August, there were two. On August 3, a 21-year-old from Allen, Texas killed 22 people at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas. 22 others were injured. The next day, ten people, including the shooter, were killed along with 27 others injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio.

As of December 12, there were 409 mass shootings in 2019.

And yet more disaster fell from the skies on September 1, when Hurricane Dorian, the first major hurricane of the 2019 Atlantic Hurricane season, made landfall on the Bahamas with sustained winds of 185 mph, leaving 43 dead.

If you forgot who won Super Bowl LIII (53); no worries, it was the lowest scoring game in Super Bowl history.  Tom Brady and the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams, 13-3, at the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta, Georgia.

In October, the Washington Nationals, a wild card team, stunned the Houston Astros in six games to win their first Series in franchise history. As of 2015, five NL wild-card teams went on to win the World Series.

Finally, comic book fans will be delighted to know, if they don’t know already, that the motion picture, Avengers: Endgame, based on the Marvel Comics superhero, smashed most box office records, becoming the highest grossing movie of all time, earning nearly $2.8 billion worldwide.

To get a sense of other major stories which dominated the headlines, I checked in with some news organizations to see which story drew the most traffic to their respective websites for 2019.

Here are some responses which came back to my inbox.

Photo  Credit: CBS News

 

CNN:  The blaze at the Notre Dame Cathedral drew 27 million viewers to this story

New York Times: The Most-Read NYT's Stories of 2019

Los Angeles Times: The Top 19 L.A. Times Stories of 2019

Fox News: Days 3 and 4 of the House Impeachment Hearings and the Mueller Report and its hearing were the top two most popular stories at FoxNews.com

Tampa Bay Times: The Tampa Bay Times splash that a ground-penetrating radar uncovered 150 coffins buried beneath a Tampa apartment complex was their most viewed story of the year. The story was a follow up to a major Times’ investigation , which reported that nearly 400 bodies were missing underneath five of the 67 buildings in the Robles Park public housing project in Tampa; dead bodies, left behind in what was once Zion Cemetery, the first African-American cemetery in Tampa. Robles Park Village first opened in 1954. The Zion Cemetery dated back to 1901.

Economist: The most viewed story at Economist.com was their report on “Millennial Socialism,” a new left-wing movement embraced by younger voters who have railed largely against capitalism, inequality, and neglect of the environment in America and Europe. 

 OpenSecrets: At OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics), the top “feature” of the year was their Gun Profile , a mighty divisive issue in the country which takes a close look at where the hard cash is flowing in the lobbying battles between gun control vs gun rights advocates. The top ‘’story’’ at OpenSecrets.org was their analysis and guide to Donald Trump’s foreign policy interests, which includes his “sprawling web of foreign properties and investments.”

New York Magazine:  The two top stories at NYMag.com centered on Caroline Calloway , a 27 year-old Instagram star, who leaped to internet fame, chronicling her misadventures as an American undergrad at Cambridge University and is now on tour promoting her “Creativity Workshop.” The other top story at NYMag.com for the year was “Hideous Men”, journalist and advice columnist, E. Jean Carroll’s first-person account of the 21 most revolting scoundrels she ever met, including Donald Trump, who she alleges assaulted her in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room 23 years ago.

Yahoo Finance: The two top most read stories of the year on Yahoo’s Finance page was their report that Amazon will pay nothing in federal taxes for the second year in a row,  followed by their survey of America’s favorite burgers. 

ProPublica: ProPublica’s (a non-profit newsroom that aims to produce investigate journalism in the public’s interest) most viewed investigation of the year, was their shocking exposé about a Border Patrol Facebook Page in which members made derogatory and racist remarks about migrants, including a vulgar joke about a female representative in Congress.

The Marshall Project: The Marshall Project’s (an online journalism organization focusing on issues related to criminal justice in the U.S.) most viewed story of the year, was their sharp analysis over whether there is a connection between undocumented workers and crime, based on newly released data from the Pew Research Center. 

FBI: The most viewed “story” on FBI.gov’s website this year was their article about American serial killer Samuel Little  who claims to have killed 93 people, stretching back to 1987. The FBI was able to confirm his involvement with at least 50 murders, making the Georgia native the most prolific serial killer in United States history. The most visited “page’’ on FBI.gov for their year was their list of the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. 

New York Review of Books: The most viewed article at NYBooks.com was Fintan O’Toole’s (Irish columnist and literary critic of the Irish Times) profile on Boris Johnson, the new Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and arguably the most polarizing figure to have taken up residence at 10 Downing Street.

ESPN: The news that generated the most traffic to ESPN.com this year was the tragic death of Los Angeles pitcher Tyler Skaggs, who died while under the influence of fentanyl, oxycodone, and alcohol. 

Of ESPN.com’s “original reporting”, the most viewed story was their exclusive on former NBA referee Tim Donaghy conspiring to fix games. 

Bleacher Report: The most read story of the year at Bleacherreport.com was Tyler Dunne exposé, chronicling how the relationship between Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay became shattered beyond repair. 

Weather Channel: Favorite Photos of 2019 

--Bill Lucey

[email protected]

December 16, 2019

 

Searches

Google: Year in Review

YouTube: 2019 Rewind

Social Media

Twitter Highlights for 2019

The Most Read Online News Stories of 2018: A Survey

A combative confrontation between President Trump, Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Chuck Schumer over exactly who is going to pay for the wall.

***

Yes, it’s that time again.

We are rapidly coming to the end of the year; a time to reflect on the highs and lows of the year, the most memorable moments and moments we’d just as soon forget.

As you might have guessed, the year has largely been punctuated by the flamboyant actions of the present occupant of the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave: President Donald J. Trump, considered by many as the Tweeter-in-Chief. 

In keeping with his campaign promise, Mr. Trump plowed ahead with his proposal to build a wall on the southern border of the U.S. in hopes it would stop the flow of immigration from Central and South America.  This contentious effort has met with stiff resistance particularly from the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, whose recent sit down with Trump quickly turned into an explosive exchange captured by television cameras and whirring photographers.

Aside from his rants against illegal immigrants, there has been a drip!…drip!…drip! atmosphere surrounding the President with the Robert Mueller investigation looking into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and related matters. The special counsel’s investigation has so far resulted in criminal counts against more than 30 people and three Russian entities.

Stay tuned!

2018, to be sure, will also be remembered for the continuation of the MeToo# movement (which actually began in 2017) a powerful nationwide crusade against sexual harassment and sexual assault, whose shocking allegations (thoroughly investigated) ended the careers of a number of influential newsmakers, including Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer. In September, comedian Bill Cosby was sentenced to 3 to 10 years in prison for sexual assault.

Sexual harassment allegations continued apace through the year, culminating in a contentious U.S. Supreme Court confirmation battle in which Brett Kavanaugh defended himself against sexual misconduct allegations dating back to his time in high school and college.

In October, Kavanaugh was narrowly confirmed (50-48) as the 114th Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.

Picture of Hurricane Michael's wrath.

***

One of the most destructive weather calamities of the year occurred on October 10, when Hurricane Michael made landfall at Mexico Beach, Florida, with packed winds of 155 mph and a minimum pressure of 919 mbar. It was reportedly the most intense hurricane to hit the mainland United States since Camille in 1969. By October 28, a total of 35 people were officially confirmed killed by the hurricane in Florida, with hundreds still unaccounted for.

Many news organizations spent a good part of October reporting the death of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. His tragic death sparked a diplomatic crisis for Saudi Arabia.

During the scorching hot summer, Apple Inc. the multinational tech company, achieved a remarkable milestone in becoming the world's first public company to achieve a market capitalization of $1 trillion.

And Canada scored a new high in June when they became the first major industrialized country to legalize cannabis for recreational use.

Not all the news of the year was gloomy. Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, after all, finally tied the knot, marrying American actress Meghan Markle in June. The ceremony was held at St George's Chapel, England, with an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion.

Boston Strong was strong again this year. The Boston Red Sox won their ninth World Series, deposing the Los Angeles Dodgers in 5 games. It was the Red Sox fourth World Series win in the 21st century.

Well, these were just some of the major stories of the year.

To get a sense of some other big stories of the year, I reached out to a number of news organizations and asked them which single story drew the most traffic to their respective websites.

What follows are the responses I received.

New York Times

The Most-Read New York Times Stories of 2018

Wall Street Journal

The Wall Street Journal splashed with a major scoop, when it reported that Donald Trump lawyer, Michael Cohen, paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 from his own personal funds before the 2016 election to silence her about allegations that she had sex with Trump in 2006. 

CNN

The top story on CNN.com in 2018 was the breaking news on Midterm Election Night, with 29 million-page views. 

Celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain’s obituary was their second largest story of the year with 24 million-page views.

L.A. Times

It should come as little surprise that the Los Angeles Times most populated online story was their ongoing coverage of the Woolsey Fire, a destructive wildfire that burned in Los Angeles and Ventura Counties, which destroyed 1,643 structures, killed three people, and prompted the evacuation Km of more than 295,000 people.

Fox News

A couple of the most widely viewed stories at FoxNews.com included Fox News star Charles Krauthammer revealing he had just weeks to live in an heartbreaking letter, which was read to viewers; along with a profile of Christine Blasey Ford, the  Palo Alto University psychology professor, who accused Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

New York Review of Books

In an essay in the New York Review of Books, Holocaust historian Christopher Browning compares the heightened sense of nationalism under the Donald Trump administration to the rise of fascism in the interwar period. 

New York Magazine

Three of the most read articles at NYMag.com, included "In Conversation: Quincy Jones" By David Marchese ; “Donald Trump Didn’t Want to Be President” By Michael Wolff; and their eye-popping feature on Anna Delvey, a Russian-German woman, who scammed her way through the fashion scene in Manhattan.  

The Marshall Project

Since The Marshall Project, a nonprofit, nonpartisan online journalism organization focusing on issues related to criminal justice in the United States, shares content with a number of news outlets, it's impossible to determine just how many readers actually viewed their stories. But based solely on the traffic they received on their website, their most read single story was "The Volunteer," about Scott Dozier, a Nevada death row inmate who dropped his appeals and demanded to be executed. (He's still waiting.) 

Weather.com

 The devastating effects of Hurricane Michael drew the most traffic at Weather.com.

 ProPublica

 The highly controversial topic of migrant children being separated from their families at the border is examined more deeply by ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism news organization in their feature: “Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border “. 

PolitiFact

At Politifact, a nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida (with offices in Washington D.C.), the fact-check of the claim that Trump's family separation policy was the same as Barack Obama's drew more readers than any other in 2018. The claim rated false. 

Daily Beast

 The most viewed story of the year at The Daily Beast, the popular online news and opinion website, focused on politics and pop culture centered on how an ex-cop rigged McDonald’s Monopoly Game and stole millions. 

OpenSecrets.org

OpenSecrets.org, a non-profit, nonpartisan research group based in Washington, D.C., that tracks the effects of money and lobbying on elections and public policy, most read feature of the year dealt with Robert Mercer who backed a secretive group that worked with Facebook, and Google to target anti-Muslim ads at swing voters.

FBI.Gov

At FBI.gov, the most read feature of the year was their post about Samuel Little, a convicted killer linked to 90 murders. 

Fortune Magazine

Fortune Magazine readers usually follow the money. So it's no surprise that the multinational business magazine's most-read story of the year on their website centered on a short news item about the House passing a $3.8 trillion tax cut, "Under the Fog of Kavanaugh, House Passes $3.8 Trillion More in Tax Cuts" 

Food Network

The Food Network's most read feature was "30-Minute Dinner Recipes" 

Travel Network

The Travel Channel drew the most traffic with "10 of the World's Most Underrated Destinations." 

MLB

Finally, "Starters and rosters for 2018 All-Star Game Astros, Indians, Red Sox lead way with 5 picks; Braves atop NL with 4'' was the top choice with readers at MLB.com for 2018 

***

Social Media: Year-in-Review

Google Year in Review 2018: Search Trends

Twitter: Biggest Tweets of the Year

Instagram Year in Review 2018 

Facebook’s 2018 Year in Review 

 

Happy Holidays!

–Bill Lucey

[email protected]

December 13, 2018

 

 

 

Year in Review: Most Read Stories of 2017

 

 Me Too marchers gather at Hollywood and Highland. 

Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

2017 has been a tumultuous year, to be sure.

Ever since Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45^th U.S. President on January 20,^th  the news cycle has endured a cataclysmic year, from the Twitter-in-chief, blaming the left-leaning news media and “Fake News” for his unfavorable polling numbers, to North Korea firing a intercontinental ballistic missile (crashing into the sea of Japan), a large-scale ransomware cyberattack, (affecting an estimated 150 countries), terrorist bombing attacks in Manchester, England (with 22 people killed) and the Islamic State of Iraq (killing 17 civilians), a mass shooting in Las Vegas (leaving 58 people dead), another gunmen killing 26 at a rural Texas church, along with two massive earthquakes: Hurricane Maria (Category 4) in Puerto Rico, causing at least 94 deaths and estimated damages in excess of $103 billion, and Hurricane Harvey (Category 4), causing catastrophic damage to the Houston metropolitan area, with at least 90 deaths and total damages ballooning to $198.6 billion.

If this tidal wave wasn’t turbulent enough, the White House finds itself out of the frying pan and into the fire of an ongoing Special Counsel investigation, led by former FBI Director Robert Mueller III (special counsel), who is exploring possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives in the 2016 presidential campaign.

It hasn’t all been doom and gloom.

In August, "The Great American Eclipse," a once-in-a-lifetime full solar eclipse was witnessed by millions as it swept across the contiguous United States of America, passing from the Pacific to the Atlantic coasts.

And the Houston Astros, in November, became World Series champions for the first time in franchise history, beating the Los Angeles Dodgers in seven games.

But, by far, the biggest earthquakes of the year surround the sexual harassment scandals that have rocked the entertainment and journalism professions, even extending into the halls of the U.S. Congress, over the past few months, sparking a revolutionary #MeToo movement, beginning with Hollywood motion picture mogul, Harvey Weinstein, (accused of sexual harassment, assault, and rape of women) Academy Award winning actor Kevin Spacey (accused of sexual assault and abuse), television news icons, Charlie Rose (accused of groping women and making lewd telephone calls) , Matt Lauer, co-host of the Today Show (charged with inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace), and the recent resignation of Minnesota U.S. Senator Al Franken (multiple groping allegations).

Despite "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa’s " issued by each of these individuals, (including others) their professional careers appear shattered beyond repair.

To get an idea what stories were the most popular from your favorite websites, I checked in with some editors to see what stories drew the most page views for the year.

What follows are the sites which responded to my emails.

CNN: The top story of 2017 to date for CNN Digital was this explainer of the Las Vegas shooter, which has seen 19.5 million-page views. 

New York Times: Most read story of the year on the NYT’s website was their feature on the multiple weapons found in the Las Vegas gunman’s hotel room. 

            Editors of the Times rounded up their most popular stories, which includes the Harvey Weinstein bombshell, and a judge blocking President Trump’s order on refugees.

L.A. Times: One of the most popular stories of the year at the Times was their Editorial Series: “Our Dishonest President.” 

ProPublica: (A nonprofit investigative journalism organization based in New York City).  Marc Kasowitz, President Trump’s personal attorney in the Russia case threatening a stranger in a string of profanity-laced emails, was ProPublica’s most read story of the year. 

New York Magazine: Their number one piece was “The Uninhabitable Earth “By David Wallace-Wells. 

Time Magazine:  The most read story on Time's website was their interactive on this summer's solar eclipse. 

Other widely read stories at Time.com, included George W. Bush daughters writing the Obama girls a letter, and President Trump's immigration proposals for America. 

FiveThirtyEight: (A website which focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging). FiveThirtyEight's most popular piece was their graphic: "How Popular/Unpopular is Donald Trump?" 

            FiveThirtyEight's most-read non-interactive, non-live-blog story was " The Real Story Of 2016: What reporters — and lots of data geeks, too — missed about the election, and what they’re still getting wrong" , while their most-read non-interactive, non-live-blog, non-series story was Nate Silver's "Donald Trump’s Base Is Shrinking."

Quartz (qz.com ) - Quartz is a news website owned by Atlantic Media, which operates editions in Africa and India

Some of the most popular stories of year at qz.com includes:

Simple math is why Elon Musk’s companies keep doing what others don’t even consider possible.

Houston’s flooding shows what happens when you ignore science and let developers run rampant.

One of the most common questions in American small talk is considered rude in much of the world. 

A philosopher’s 350-year-old trick to get people to change their minds is now backed up by psychologists. 

OpenSecrets.org (Center for Responsive Politics) most popular story of the year was Ashley Balcerzak's story on House Rules changes from early 2017 

FBI.Gov: The most popular posting of the year on the FBI's website was their crime statistics for 2016, which reported that violent crime increased for the second consecutive year, property crime decreased for the 14th straight year, with an estimated 17,250 murders in the U.S., an 8.6 percent increase from 2015. 

Weather.com: Photos of the Destruction Hurricane Irma Left Behind 

 

Professional Sports:

MLB.com: The most popular story of the year on MLB’s website was the Yankees-Tigers bench clearing clash, which resulted in eight players being ejected during a four-hour, 13-minute donnybrook at Comerica Park in Detroit. 

NBA.com: On the NBA's website, Cleveland Cavalier’s point guard, Kyrie Irving's, shocking announcement in requesting a trade so he wouldn't have to share the big stage with LeBron James, was the most popular story of the year. 

 

Social Media

Facebook’s 2017 Year in Review 

Twitter's Most Popular Tweets and Accounts of 2017 

Instagram’s 2017 Year in Review 

The Top Viral YouTube Videos of 2017 (Compiled by Time.com) 

 

--Bill Lucey

December 11, 2017

[email protected]

Year in Review: Top Stories of 2016

Typically, in a year in review summary, there’s a truck load of stories to underscore, some tragic, some inspirational, some historic and a few just simply out of the ordinary.

2016 was no exception except that Donald J. Trump and his unconventional thrust to the U.S. presidency seemed to suck all the oxygen out of the news cycle, eclipsing most other major stories while leaving others to sidebar status.

Yet, there were a few screaming headlines that not even the president-elect was able to outdo.

A horrific tragedy occurred in May when EgyptAir Flight 804, which was traveling from Paris to Cairo, crashed into the Mediterranean Sea with 66 people on board. No survivors were found. 

Sadly, that wasn’t the only dreadful air crash.

At the end of November, a charter plane, carrying the Brazilian Chapecoense football squad, including 22 players, 23 coaches, 21 journalists and two guests, took off from Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, and slammed into a side of a mountain in Colombia, killing 71 of the 77 people on board.

In June, the anti-establishment mood took hold when the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union in a EU referendum (or Brexit) in which 51.9 percent of voters stunningly voted in favor of leaving the Union, resulting in a precipitous plunge in the global stock markets. The markets lost about $2 trillion in value the day after the historic vote. The Dow dropped 611 points, while Nasdaq had its worst day since 2011.

Not all was doom and gloom; there were some inspirational stories during the year.

Most notably, the 2016 Summer Olympics were held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where the United States won 46 gold, 37 silver and 38 bronze medals, for a total of 121, more than any other country. 

And as the winter weather was setting in with cold blasts and gusty winds just around the corner, the Chicago Cubs of the “Windy City” ended their 108-year drought in November, beating the Cleveland Indians in seven games  to claim their first world championship since 1908 in the 112^th World Series. 

In order to get a better sense of some of the online news stories that attracted the most attention, I checked in with some prominent news sites to see which stories drove the most traffic for 2016.

When Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old security guard, discharged a hail of bullets inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people and wounding 53 others, it was CNN.com's most trafficked story in 2016. There were 37 million page views, 81 percent of which were on mobile devices.

By far, however, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s bruising presidential campaign with guns and arrows in full swing — culminating in one of the most stunning election results in American history — was the story that kept on giving to a majority of online news sites.

It will come as little surprise that the most read stories of 2016 at The New York Times dealt with the presidential election. But for those tired of reading about the election, the Times has added a “No Politics” filter. 

According to a company spokesperson, the most read non-political piece at NYTimes.com was “Why You Will Marry the Wrong Person” by Alain de Botton, the author of the novel  “The Course of Love.”

According to Katharine Viner, editor-in-chief of Guardian News & Media, the site’s U.S. election interactive was not only the item that drove the most amount of traffic “it was their biggest piece of Guardian journalism ever.”

Similarly, at Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight, records were broken across all metrics during the last month of the U.S. Presidential Election race with its Election Forecast.

According to a company spokesperson, its election forecast was the most popular piece of individual content across all of ESPN’s web properties for the months of August and September as well as October. During the month, 4.9 million average weekly readers visited the forecast an average of 2.5 times and consumed 5.7 pages of content per visit.

In August, LATimes.com published its USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times “Daybreak” presidential poll that asked more than 400 people each day about their voting intentions. It was the Los Angeles Times’ highest trafficked item of the year. 

The other major stories that drew record traffic at the Times’ site for the year was a Ku Klux Klan rally in Anaheim that erupted into violence as three people were stabbed and 13 others arrested, along with the story dealing with an Indiana man who was apprehended carrying a cache of weapons and explosive-making materials with the apparent intention of attending the L.A. Gay Pride Festival in West Hollywood. 

At The Wall Street Journal, its online story centering on the internecine battle at the FBI over how best to proceed with its investigation of Hillary Clinton's email use and the 650,000 emails found on a laptop of former U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner   was the top story of the year at WSJ.com, according to a company spokesperson.

Another highly read story at WSJ.com dealt with the Obama administration’s airlift of $400 million worth of cash to Iran just as four Americans detainees in Tehran were released, raising sharp questions of whether it amounted to a quid pro quo or ransom. 

The third biggest story of the year was when The Journal reported in November that the National Enquirer (a strong supporter of Donald Trump) declined to publish the story of a Playboy model's alleged affair with the Republican nominee.  

At Politico, the story that drove the most traffic, according to editor-in-chief John Harris, was actually a post-election piece that broke down and scrutinized Donald Trump's unconventional and highly controversial Cabinet picks, comprised mostly of “industry titans and conservative activists.” 

As the year kicked off, the Cook Political Report reported that despite calls for Hillary Clinton to push the panic button over the growing ascendency of populist candidate Bernie Sanders, the demographics (in which Sanders’ support is confined to white liberals), together with Clinton's lead with super delegates (elected officials, party activists and officials), made it more likely that the Vermont senator would get clobbered nationally. It was the Cook Political Report's most read story of the year. 

The next top story at the Cook Political Report was its prediction that Donald Trump's historic unpopularity with a large body of the electorate (women, millennials, Latinos etc.) made the real estate mogul and reality television star the early underdog in November. As a result, the Cook Political Report was predicting seismic shifts in its 13-state scorecard, most of them favoring the Democrats.

The third biggest story at the Cook Political Report was Amy Walter's sharp deconstruction of the Iowa caucuses (in which Ted Cruz upset Donald Trump), as she reported how despite his narrow loss, Trump was attracting non-traditional voters to the polls; this along with 48 percent of Iowa voters in favor of a candidate who was outside the establishment compared with 46 percent who preferred candidates “who had experience in politics.” 

At Time.com, the most read story of the year was its annual Person of the Year poll, ahead of the official Person of the Year announcement.

At The Marshall Project, a nonprofit nonpartisan online journalism organization that focuses on criminal justice in the United States, its top story included a gripping interview with Penny Beerntsen, who was brutally attacked and sexually assaulted while jogging on a Lake Michigan beach near her home in Wisconsin. Her chilling narrative became a chapter in Netflix's documentary, “Making a Murderer.”

Another widely read story was “An Unbelievable Story of Rape,” a disturbing account of the hunt for a serial rapist, co-published by ProPublica and The Marshall Project, written by T. Christian Miller, a senior reporter for ProPublica, and Ken Armstrong, a writer for The Marshall Project. The piece was originally published in 2015, but earned a Pulitzer Prize this year. According to Bill Keller, editor-in-chief of The Marshall Project, “An Unbelievable Story of Rape” became an episode of “This American Life,” a weekly one-hour radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass with broadcasts on a number of public radio stations nationwide.

The third top story at The Marshall Project's website dealt was a piece written and produced in collaboration with National Public Radio about two inmates living together in a cell smaller than a parking space at the Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois with one of the cellmates homicidal. 

For those who gravitate toward long form journalism, the most popular story at New York Magazine's website (by total engaged time; that is, how many total minutes readers spent looking at each piece) was Andrew Sullivan's thoughtful essay that questions whether America is ripe for tyranny. 

Another big ticket item at NYMag.com was “The 100 Jokes That Shaped Modern Comedy From the Marx Brothers to ​The Simpsons, Richard Pryor to Amy Schumer” by Jesse David Fox.

Rounding out the top three was national affairs editor at New York Magazine, Gabriel Sherman's incisive look at how Fox News women brought down Roger Ailes, arguably the most powerful and predatory media mogul in American television.

Unfortunately, no year in review is complete without reporting on some destructive weather calamity pounding the U.S.

Weather.com reports its most read story of the year was how Hurricane Matthew, the destructive tropical cyclone (a Category 5) clobbered the U.S., leading to 49 deaths, making it the deadliest Atlantic hurricane since Hurricane Stan in 2005. 

Another popular item at Weather.com was its creative photo gallery, showcasing the world's weirdest and most amazing bridges; followed by Winter Storm Jonas, the crippling blizzard that slammed with a vengeance into the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, causing 50 deaths with a preliminary economic impact surpassing $850 million. 

Most Read Stories at Other Sites

• BuzzFeed: A Letter from a Stanford University Rape Victim. 

• OpenSecrets.org: The selection of Mike Pence as Donald Trump's running mate imposes fundraising barriers to the Republican ticket. 

• FBI.gov: The FBI's recovery of underage victims of prostitution and drawing the public’s attention to the problem of sex trafficking at home and abroad. The domestic intelligence and security service recovered 82 sexually exploited juveniles along with arresting 239 pimps and other individuals.

• NFL.com: NFL owners in Houston in January voted 30-2 to ratify the St Louis Rams' relocation application for an immediate move to Los Angeles, while the Oakland Raiders withdrew their application for relocation with plans to work with the league toward a stadium solution. 

• FoodNetwork.com: Healthy Weeknight Dinners was the Food Network’s top item that drove the most amount of page views,  followed by its Top 50 Most Saved Recipes Gallery. 

 Year in Review: Search Engines/Social Media

• Google's Year in Searches 

• YouTube Rewind 2016 

• Yahoo's Top News Stories, Pop Culture, Sports Moments, Fashion Trends 

• Facebook 2016 Year in Review 

• Twitter: This Happened in 2016 

• Instagram 2016 Year in Review 

Notable Deaths in 2016

Jan. 5 — Pierre Boulez: French composer, conductor and writer.

Jan. 10 — David Bowie: English singer, songwriter and actor.

Jan. 18 — Glenn Frey: American singer, songwriter and founding member of the rock band the Eagles.

Jan.26 — Abe Vigoda: American actor.

Feb. 12-13 — Antonin Scalia: Associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court from 1986 until his death.

March 6 — Nancy Davis Reagan: American actress, and wife of the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan.

March 23 — Ken Howard: American actor.

March 24 — Garry Shandling: American stand-up comedian, actor and writer.

March 29 — Patty Duke: American actress of stage, film and television.

June 3 — Muhammad Ali: American heavyweight boxing champion and social activist.

June 10 — Gordie Howe: Canadian professional hockey player.

June 12 — George Voinovich: Republican U.S. senator from Ohio (1999-2011), the 65th governor of Ohio (1991-1998) and 54th mayor of Cleveland (1980-1989).

July 16 — Nate Thurmond: NBA player.

July 19 — Garry Marshall: American film director, television producer, actor and creator of the ABC sitcom “Happy Days.”

Aug. 29 — Gene Wilder: American film and theater comic actor, screenwriter, film director and author.

Sept. 16 — Edward Albee: American playwright.

Sept. 28 — Shimon Peres: The ninth president of Israel, the eighth prime minister of the country and Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

Nov. 7 — Janet Reno: attorney general of the United States from 1993 until 2001.

Nov. 14 — Gwen Ifill, American Peabody Award-winning journalist, television newscaster and co-anchor of the “PBS NewsHour.”

Nov. 25 — Fidel Castro: Cuban revolutionary and politician who governed the Republic of Cuba as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as president from 1976 to 2008.

Nov. 25 — Ron Glass: American actor, best known as Det. Ron Harris on the ABC sitcom “Barney Miller.”

Dec. 8 — John Glenn: American aviator, engineer, astronaut and U.S. senator from Ohio.

Dec. 13 — Alan Thicke: Canadian actor, songwriter and game and talk show host.

Dec. 15 — Craig Sager: Colorful sideline reporter for the NBA's television broadcasts.

Dec. 18 — Zsa Zsa Gabor: Hungarian-American actress and socialite.

 

— Bill Lucey

[email protected]

Dec. 19, 2016

Year in Review: Top Online News Stories of 2015

Tashfeen Malik, right, and Syed Farook, the San Bernardino attackers expressed support for martyrdom using "private direct messages" according to FBI Director James Comey. Photo Credit: FBI

 

The Kansas City Royals win their first World Series in 30 years. Photo Credit:  CNN

 

Finally, it’s happening, at long last.  2015 is nearing its end.

And what a bloodbath it was.

If it wasn’t suicide bombings at a mosque in Kuwait, a market in Cameroon, or the killing of at least 100 people at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey in October, it was 62 school shootings in the United States alone, leaving 30 people dead.

Taken together, the U.S. witnessed 353 mass shootings with 12, 223 people killed in gun incidents during the year.

Internationally, one of the most shocking incidents of the year took place in the heart of Paris in November, when three suicide bombers struck near the Stade de France in Saint-Denis, followed by suicide bombings and mass shootings at cafés, restaurants and a music venue, leaving 130 dead in the City of Light. The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took responsibility for the ruthless acts.

Back on U.S. soil, the most highly publicized mass shootings of the year centered on the three killed and nine wounded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs in November, and another 16 killed during a bloody shooting rampage at a health center in San Bernardino, California on December 2nd. Sixteen people died during the ISIS inspired attack, including the assailants with 17 more wounded.

In addition, questionable police shootings of unarmed minority suspects have cast a dark shadow over a number of law enforcement officials across the nation.

According to the Washington Post, of the thousands of police shootings that have occurred since 2005, just 54 officers were charged—an average of about five officers a year. In the final weeks of 2015, however, that number has climbed to 17.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom in 2015.

On September 9^th, Queen Elizabeth II became the longest-reigning British monarch and longest-serving Queen in history.

After a 10,962-day title drought, the Kansas City Royals out-hustled and out-pitched the New York Mets in five games to claim their first World Series in 30 years.

Finally, in entertainment news, Donald Trump, the real estate mogul, launched a new reality TV show in which he spits out the most insulting, bigoted, and xenophobic attacks against enemy combatants in his quest for the U.S. Presidency.

The Donald’s reality show, so far,  has met with rave reviews.

To give you a better idea of what stories and events attracted reader’s attention in 2015, I asked a number of news organizations what story generated the most page views for the year.

Here, then, are some of the most heavily trafficked online stories of the year.

CNN

Celebrities turning the BIG FIVE O, generated 94 million page views for the year, according to a CNN spokesperson. http://tinyurl.com/paq6c87

The New York Times

The Upshot: Ari Isaacman Astles, Samarth Bhaskar, and Danny DeBelius took a close look at the Times' stories which held reader’s attention the longest; including a mix of investigative projects, big breaking news, and features, among others. http://tinyurl.com/hcuaoau

The Atlantic

Graeme Wood, a contributing editor at The Atlantic and an Edward R. Murrow Press Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in ``What ISIS Really Wants'' describes how he tracked down the world’s most influential recruiters for the Islamic State—and how they reacted after his article was published. http://goo.gl/l5oXof

New York Magazine

A chilling narrative authored by Noreen Malone and Amanda Demme in which 35 women divulge their private accounts about being assaulted by Bill Cosby. http://tinyurl.com/pwj5h6p

ProPublica

The Red Cross received an outpouring of donations, nearly half a billion dollars, after an earthquake struck Haiti.  Today, according to a ProPublica investigation, the actual number of permanent homes the group built in all of Haiti stands at six, not the 130,000 people it claims to have provided for. http://tinyurl.com/pl6txrz 

Time.com

Chris Wilson creates an interactive feature in which he traces the popularity of names dating back to 1890. According to a Time spokesperson, this is the third year in a row in which Wilson has authored (or co-authored) the most read story. http://tinyurl.com/zgpej36

FBI.gov

The FBI, in partnership with local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), executed ``Operation Cross Country,'' in which they recovered 149 sexually exploited children, including the arrests of more than 150 pimps and other individuals. http://tinyurl.com/jv6xboa

 

Weather.com: Top 5 posts of the year

1.)  World’s Weirdest Bridges (PHOTOS) http://tinyurl.com/pqcn3f6

2.)  No Vacancies: Abandoned Hotels and Resorts (PHOTOS)  http://tinyurl.com/pn4d7q4  

3.)  Wild Photos of Spring Break Partiers Through the Decades http://tinyurl.com/zgrvz9e

4.)  The World’s Deepest Snow (PHOTOS) http://tinyurl.com/nuf42ft

5.)  The World’s Weirdest Hotels (PHOTOS) http://tinyurl.com/zgdc3pe

 

BuzzFeed

Lively Debate: What Colors Are This Dress? http://goo.gl/8wYvDb

MLB.com

• Melissa Mayeux, a shortstop on the French U-18 junior national team, became the first known female baseball player to be added to MLB's international registration list, making her eligible to be signed by a Major League club. http://tinyurl.com/q2kwe8o

• AL, NL All-Star Game Starters Unveiled. http://tinyurl.com/ogs4vm4

 

Social Media

Twitter: Year in Review: http://tinyurl.com/j62a9cb

Facebook: Year in Review: http://tinyurl.com/zlmlse9

Tumblr: Year in Review: http://tinyurl.com/qbnzrj9

Instagram: Year in Review: http://tinyurl.com/gvnlftu

Vimeo (Video sharing website) Year in Review: http://tinyurl.com/zzhvblh

YouTube: Celebrating the videos, people, music and moves that made 2015 http://tinyurl.com/o25ws9y

 

Search Engines

Google: A Year in Searches: http://tinyurl.com/jllabxj

Yahoo: A Year on Yahoo 2015  http://tinyurl.com/jqlbvbe

 

-Bill Lucey

[email protected]

December 17, 2015

Fact-Checking the GOP Debate: Welders, Philosophers, and Illegal Immigrants

 

During the fourth Republican debate on Tuesday night in Milwaukee, the presidential contenders’ stats, facts, and spirited attacks came thick and fast.

So much so that it became tough, at times, to know what was true, false, or highly exaggerated.

Two issues, in particular, which popped up during the debate-caught my attention: immigration and vocational education.

1.)     Dwight D. Eisenhower (``I like Ike’’) deports 1.5 million illegal aliens.

American real estate mogul, television personality and presidential hopeful Donald Trump, hoping to make a strong case for the deportation of some 11 million undocumented workers in this country if he becomes president, cited the efforts of the amicable Dwight D. Eisenhower, who, according to Mr. Trump, moved 1.5 million out of this country while in the White House.

Whether those figures are correct or not (some historians believe those figures to be inflated-more on that later) what Mr. Trump didn’t reveal was the name of the initiative executed by President Eisenhower.

It was called ``Operation Wetback’’, when In July 1954, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) repatriated illegal immigrants with a particular focus on illegal Mexican immigrants.

Just the term ``wetback’’ is a problem for many in this country, even today. Wetback was intended to be a race-neutral term, but it was in reality a racial epithet used by government officials and whites for law-breaking Mexican border crossers. ``Wetbacks’’ refers to those who swam the Rio Grande in order to enter the United States.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines ``wetback'' as a ``disparaging term for a Mexican, especially a laborer who crosses the U.S. border illegally.''

The National Association of Hispanic Journalists, moreover, considers ``wetback'' among the very worst of racial epithets.

From the U.S. government’s perspective at the time, Operation Wetback was considered a booming success in that it forced 1.3 million illegal aliens to leave the United States, either by deporting them directly or by making them so afraid-they would flee the country.

But for its opponents, Operation Wetback represented a gross violation of human and civil rights-and most damaging of all-ignited a poisonous atmosphere of confrontation between illegal immigrants and U.S. government officials which remain with us today.

Many have cast doubt on the figure often cited by government officials that they deported as many as 1.3 million to 1.5 million undocumented workers.

Juan Garcia, in the history department at the University of Arizona, says his research has proved ``the operation was made to appear successful through the use of a well planned publicity campaign by the Border Patrol and the INS. ‘’ ``In fact’’, Garcia argues, `` the number of undocumented people who were deported or self-repatriated was inflated to make the operation appear to be successful.’’

Professor Garcia additionally points out that operation didn’t meet with a great deal of public outcry at the time, only because the media gatekeepers and government officials ``fanned anti-immigrant sentiments’’ by widely publicizing the danger that "illegals" posed to the U.S. ``All this came’’, Professor Garcia contends, `` during the height of Cold War tensions and McCarthyism.’’

The few civil rights activists objecting to the roundups didn’t make much of an impact.

Richard Delgado, who teaches civil rights and critical race theory at University of Alabama School of Law, considers Operation Wetback to be one of the most shameful forced mass-movements of people in recent U.S. history.  `` It stands in infamy along with the Trail of Tears (Indian removal from Georgia to Oklahoma) and the wartime internment of the Japanese. ‘’

``Authorities scooped up Mexican-looking people whenever they came across them’’ Delgado said. ``They weren't too choosy.  Many were American citizens who had lived here all their lives.’’

 

2.)    Vocational Training: More Welders, Less Philosophers

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Tuesday night during the Republican debate in Milwaukee that ``welders make more money than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.''

The first part of the sentence has proved not to be true.

According to government statistics, the median wage for welders is $37,420, while the median wage for philosophy professors is $63,630.

But as a U.S. Labor Department spokesperson pointed out, there isn’t a standard occupational classification for philosophers as a general category, just a classification for postsecondary teachers of religion and philosophy.

On the second part of Mr. Rubio’s sentence, his push for more welders in this country, packed a punch.

The State of the Welding Industry Report Executive Summary developed by the National Center for Welding Education and Training reports a need for 240,000 additional welders between 2009 and 2019.

That number is projected to grow to 340,000 by the year 2024.

In addition, according to David J. Landon, president of the American Welding Society (AWS), ``there are a little over a million jobs that require welding as a skill. The annual need is a little over 40,000 new welders just to keep up with growth and attrition.’’

Duncan Estep, director for the National Center for Welding Education and Training in Elyria, Ohio, argues the ``need for qualified welders is being exacerbated by Baby boomers retiring, the return of manufacturers to the US, the explosive growth in the energy sectors and the renewal of the aging infrastructure.’’

Estep says it isn’t unusual for him to hear manufacturers tell him that they just finished interviewing 40 people who claim to be able to weld, only to find 4 qualified welders.

In an ironic twist to the debate in Milwaukee Tuesday night, Estep found it fascinating to observe that ``Mr. Rubio’s office is located in the building that is owned and occupied  by the American Welding Society and is across the street from Donald Trump’s golf course, just outside of Miami.’’

As a ringing endorsement that this country still needs its philosophers, Jacob Rosen, assistant professor of Philosophy at Harvard University  reminds me that ``Plato thought that philosophy was the most valuable occupation possible for a human, and he made philosophers rule his ideal society in the Republic, but he also made them far outnumbered by smiths.''

Taken together, Professor Rosen believes it’s mighty important for the U.S. to have both good philosophers and good welders ``in whatever numbers are appropriate to meet people's intellectual, spiritual, and material needs.''

Well said!

-Bill Lucey

[email protected]

November 13, 2015