Top stories by the numbers

By Joel Myhre (Contact) | The Daily Journal

Published Saturday, December 27, 2008

So the top stories of 2008, in the eyes of the “media” people, are, of course, the important ones, from the local elections to the groundbreaking of the new cancer center to the efforts to bring a Chinese business college to the soon-to-be-vacant Regional Treatment Center campus.

To find out what the actual ranking of the “real” top stories, you’ll have to wait until our Year In Review section is published on Wednesday, Dec. 31.

I have decided to reserve this space to reveal the Journal’s top stories of the year as determined by the readers of our web site, www.fergusfallsjournal.com

What makes this list different from our “official” top stories of the year, you say? For one, there’s no subjectivity when it comes to our web top stories; it’s purely a numbers thing, based on the stories with the highest pageview count (the most hits, in webspeak.)

That said, the stories that are the most read by readers aren’t necessarily the “most important,” but rather, the most interesting. So here goes (By the way, all of these stories can be read by typing the headline into our search engine):

10. Bucks drown after locking antlers. (Nov. 20): The story of a hunter who discovered two deceased bucks in covered in water and ice in a frozen slough, with their horns locked together, conjures up a narrative that Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom could only dream about.

9. Drug bust nets meth (Feb. 28): This story represented a case where reader comments had far more to do with the story’s popularity than the story itself. Especially when one of alleged “bustees” decided to defend himself on our comments section, yielding a wide-ranging discussion about the true nature meth users.

8. Who is Barack Obama? (Oct. 25): This letter represented another Internet phenomenon: the power of global search engines. A letter writer from Henning suggested the mainstream media held back information on our president-elect due to its liberal bias prompted a string of political comments. My bet is that the conversation involved many from outside our part of the world.

7. Body of a man found (July 7): The popularity of this story, I believe and hope, is a testament to our community’s concern, and to the Journal’s web site as the place to turn for spot news. The body of the 49-year-old man was found in a soybean field after a three-day search.

6. Fergus Falls group may be the hottest unsigned band (June 21): The story of the group the METASONICS competing in a contest of unsigned bands likely was popular because it fit our niche of a younger audience on the web, and because it reached outside the bounds of our area.

5. Home destroyed in Elbow Lake fire (Feb. 19): Another tragic news story that was of interest to many in the area.

4. Federal employee is the sweetest job in town (July 28): The letter about a person’s experience at the local IRS office – complete with armed guards at the door, taking a number when the room was empty, and waiting for 10 minutes while the staff talked about potato salad and their teen-aged daughters, was the kind of true story that Saturday Night Live skitmakers wished they could make up.

3. VFW baseball coach killed in accident (Feb. 17): Yet another tragic accident, with a well-known local resident in Fergus Falls VFW baseball coach Isaiah Anderson died in a one-vehicle crash Saturday on I-94 near the Big Chief exit, prompted a lot of interest.

2. Baby born 8-08-08 (Aug. 8, of course): A Fergus Falls couple had a baby girl was born at 8:08 a.m. on the eighth day of the eighth month, and she weighed eight pounds and eight ounces. Enough said as to why this story attracted attention.

1. Motorcyclist injured after mash spilled on I-94 (Aug. 2): Why would the story of a Canadian motorcyclist who suffered minor injuries after wiping out on I-94 after hitting a pile of corn mash spilled by a truck that had just left the nearby ethanol plant be our top story of the year?

Maybe it was because the story had a little bit of everything: spot news, hooks to draw in national motorcycle safety and ethanol groups, and enough oddness to get people talking.

The beauty of it is, I technically don’t have to explain why this was the top story of the year. I didn’t choose it. You, purveyors of our web site, did.

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Joel Myhre is The Journal’s general manager. E-mail him at joel.myhre@fergusfallsjournal.com