The stories our online readers deemed most clickworthy

Published 1:30 am Friday, December 30, 2016

Oh, the stories we click on.

A glance at our top read HeraldNet stories of 2016 reveals what many already know to be true, or at least believed it to be so. People are drawn to tragedy — death, destruction, loss — but there are definitely some outliers worth mentioning (read: Trump, Chris Pratt, high school sports, and the near-universal despisal of traffic).

First, a look at the 20 most read stories.

1. Navy gives a look inside its new stealth destroyer
2. Site of planned mosque in Mukilteo vandalized
3. Everett family opens up about sons addiction overdose death
4. Police: Teacher, bus driver among 8 caught in child-sex sting
5. Heroin supplier sentenced to 15 years in prison
6. Nominees for the Class of 2016 Kristi Bartz Memorial Girls Athlete of the Year
7. Teacher resigns after ex-student says they had a sexual relationship
8. Police agents haul in 9 pounds of heroin potentially worth millions
9. Body of man, 29, found hanging in tree in Marysville
10. Everett couple arrested after ‘tortured’ 3-month-old girl dies
11. Clues in murder case: Blood video and cellphone movement
12. Horse racing community ‘devastated’ by death of Snohomish trainer
13. Resigned Lake Stevens teacher accused of repeated misconduct
14. Mother found guilty of sex crimes involving daughter 6
15. U.S. doesn’t crack the top 10 happiest countries in the world
16. Police warn Lake Stevens residents of convicted sex offender
17. Police I.D. teen mother of baby found in Everett dumpster
18. No witnesses to Mountain Loop car crash that killed 3
19. Nominees for the Class of 2016 Boys Athlete of the Year
20. Part-time firefighter, EMT was beloved in the community

We’re often surprised by which stories generate click-worthy interest.

The top story was truly befuddling for just about everyone in the newsroom. Sure, Snohomish County’s seat city, Everett, is home to Naval Station Everett and there’s a decent military population in the area. But the numbers that propelled this story to the top were beyond those factors. Adding to the story, which was grabbed from the Associated Press newswire, is its “future of the Navy” angle. Who isn’t interested in stealth technology? There is also the mitigating factor that the ship’s commanding officer is Capt. James Kirk. You’ll never guess the ship’s name. No seriously, if you didn’t know the name prior to googling the ship or having read about it, you wouldn’t guess the name because (perhaps sadly) it is not the USS Enterprise. Alas, Capt. Kirk was to command the USS Zumwalt.

via GIPHY

Other than that major outlier, most of the stories followed a predictable pattern of “murder and mayhem,” as one of our Herald colleagues described it. Our second-ranked story featured vandalism to the site of a planned mosque in Mukilteo. That was an addition to an existing narrative thread that involved the planned Islamic worship site and flyers that went out around Mukilteo, paid for by a supplier for The Boeing Company based in the city. So that story’s performance wasn’t all too surprising at the time. Looking back, perhaps it portended the Islamaphobia and anti-Muslim sentiments that made headlines during this past election season.

That stories involving murder, sexual assault and abuse, car crashes and other tragedies wouldn’t be surprising to a horde of researchers. As reported by the BBC in 2014, a pair of researchers at McGill University in Canada found that people, told they were being studied for eye tracking and asked to read any kind of political news they so desired, picked “negative” stories. “And yet when asked, these people said they preferred good news. On average, they said that the media was too focussed on negative stories.”

Even some of the more inspiring stories on our best-read list are borne from tragedy. That’s the case for our third-most read story about an Everett family that created a nonprofit to educate students about the dangers of addiction and help them out of addiction. Their oldest son had died from his addiction. And that’s a tragic reality that Snohomish County, like many others across the United States of America, is experiencing.

Others, like Nos. 6 and 19, highlight standout young people among us for their athletic accomplishments. The nominations for the high school boys and girls athlete of the year is regularly a top feature, and this year delivered on that expectation as thousands voted for their student-athlete.

Another newswire story that cracked our top 20 was about the USA not cracking the top 10 happiest countries. Misery certainly loves company, so perhaps Americans as a whole are particularly miserable given the hundreds of other countries excluded from that elusive happiness index apex.

Meanwhile, the best read stories from Facebook mostly mirror our web. The differences are worth noting.

1. Body of man, 29, found hanging in tree in Marysville
2. Horse racing community ‘devastated’ by death of Snohomish trainer
3. Five-story hotel, Sonic part of new developments in Marysville
4. Mukilteo gathers to mourn deaths of three Kamiak grads
5. Trump expected to speak in Everett on Tuesday
6. Lawsuit contends staff ignored inmate’s peril before she died
7. Teacher wants out of Marysville Pilchuck shooting lawsuit
8. Chris Pratt raffle raises $485K for Lake Stevens Boys & Girls Club
9. South Whidbey forfeiting football game to Archbishop Murphy
10. Dutch Bros. Coffee to open stand on Broadway
11. An Everett mother mourns another young victim of heroin
12. The zipper merge is safer — and more polite
13. Popeyes to bring Southern flair to Everett
14. Congestion at Frontier Village intersection is ripe for a fix
15. 2 great day hikes conveniently located near a brewery

Ranking much higher from Facebook was the story about a man found hanging from a tree in Marysville. It was the ninth-highest on our website this past year, and the highest from Facebook.

Why the discrepancy? We can’t say for certain what makes someone click on a story’s headline on our website versus what gets the click on Facebook. But the Facebook post’s 20 comments and 204 shares were illuminating. The five-paragraph story’s scarcity of details proved a fertile ground for speculation and inference. Without listing the man’s identity or the cause and manner of death, people commented on the lack of information, with one person speculating that it was not a suicide. The high-traffic nature of the area in the city where the man was found probably fed in its popularity, but exactly why it became a shareable story eludes us.

All of that speculation led the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office to declare, probably earlier than they normally would, that the death was not suspicious. Reporting on suicides is a delicate balance for news media. People want to know why they saw all those ambulances in their neighborhood, but news agencies have struggled with how to best, if at all, report on suicide.

Our only political story to reach either list was hardly a political. It was a Facebook post about Donald Trump, then the leading Republican presidential candidate, coming to Everett for a rally. Given the level of discourse and rancor over the election, news of his presence in Everett was bound to generate interest to the tune of 277 comments, 526 shares, 622 likes, “mads” and etc., and 5,074 clicks on the link.

Connecting to the earlier mentioned theme of people dealing with addiction and its resounding effects is this story, the 14th most read from Facebook. Written by our columnist Julie Muhlstein, who penned this, “Heroin isn’t just one mother’s heartbreak. With other opiates, the drug is a destroyer of lives and a common killer,” the story of a mother living with the tragedy of her daughter dying from heroin use and addiction resonated with our readers and Facebook followers.

Other top stories were more innocuous.

Hometown hero Chris Pratt’s philanthropy on the heels of his newfound mega-stardom drew plenty of reads, likes, loves, shares and comments.

Rounding out our top 10 from Facebook is a story about the mighty Archbishop Murphy High School football team taking a forfeit victory against South Whidbey. That was the first in what became a season-long narrative leading up to the Wildcats’ state 2A title in a spectacularly dominating season.

Just outside the top 10 is a business story about famed Dutch Bros. Coffee getting its first stand in the area. Subsequent posts about its opening date and then from its grand opening were popular with likes, comments, and shares.

Similarly, a story about a Popeyes Lousiana Kitchen opening in Everett gained great fanfare.

People seemed thrilled to both be informed and argue about the veracity of this story’s premise. Apparently it’s a real conundrum to use the full length of a merge lane, at least judging by the 238 likes, 170 shares and 67 comments the post garnered.

Finally finding a place for true Pacific Northwesterners was a story that was actually just outside our top 20 but deserved recognition. What better union than that of hiking and drinking?

So that’s it, our year in review of the top read stories online and via Facebook. May 2017 be tragedy free, filled with Popeyes fried foods, Dutch Bros. Coffee, and Chris Pratt.