[ad_1]
Rihanna hasn’t released an album in eight years, but she had a No. 1 hit in Connecticut in 2023.
Of course, I’m talking about last year’s annual chart of most popular opinions. Or as I call it for short, MoPopOp.
As the author of the column “Rihanna’s Lost Youth in Connecticut,” I would like to take credit for the column’s success. But that would be like the guy who played the cowbell on “Honky Tonk Woman” trying to extort royalties from the Rolling Stones.
My column was an attempt to make fun of my own “articles” that were nothing more than clickbait. Although this article provides little information about Rihanna’s teenage years in Stamford, it (sadly) became the most read online opinion article published by Hearst Connecticut Media in 2023. Ta.
I can understand that the Nutmeggers would welcome a notch in RiRi’s timeline. Such reasoning may also explain Joel Samberg’s “The Enduring Mystery of Karen Carpenter,” a No. 3 hit on the MoPopOp charts.
After all, Carpenter was born and raised in New Haven and gave Connecticut bragging rights as one of the biggest hitmakers of the 1970s.
However, the article does not mention Connecticut at all.
But wait, we’re just getting started. The No. 6 hit song is by Elvis Presley (“Lessons from the Presleys on Estate Planning”). The relationship between the King and our country has become even more unstable. He came to Connecticut in 1975 (when he played two shows at the New Haven Coliseum), and he died in Hartford in 1977, five days before he was scheduled to perform.
There is no Connecticut trivia in the Presley Legacy article either.
So far, the 2023 MoPopOp list has not done much to convince opinion writers of my long-standing point that the best way to attract readers is to write locally.
But let’s consider what’s not on the hit list. There’s no word on President Joe Biden, Russia, or the Israel-Hamas war (this may be the only 2023 list without Taylor Swift). You have to scroll down to position 29 to find the name “Trump” (essay by former U.S. Rep. Chris Shays).
Thankfully, the rest of the list doesn’t sound like a Casey Kasem episode circa 1976. Three of his top 25 articles are editorials, all on state issues. 4th place went to President Barack Obama’s post-Sandy Hook comments on gun safety, 11th place went to the need to reconsider gas-powered leaf blowers, and 23rd place went to “If the Big 12 calls, universities will… I have to go,” he said. (They didn’t, so neither did they).
The University of Connecticut also earned two spots higher in the top 25. Hugh Bailey’s column “UConn’s biggest enemy is geography” is his No. 15, and “Fixing the narrative about UConn football” is his No. 19.
But nothing has garnered more Top 25 spots than editorials bashing or defending Stanford.
9th place: “I am a veteran teacher at Stamford, and I would never send my son to a Stamford public school.”
17th place: “Deepening deeper into Stanford’s ‘hellhole’.”
21st place: “How Power-Hungry Leaders Created a Charter to Seize Power at Stanford.”
22nd place: “The silent majority supports the development of Stanford and must speak out.”
25th place: “Are Stanford’s glory days in the past or in the future?”
(Full disclosure, I wrote the last article in response to some other questions.)
We publish nine daily newspapers in Connecticut and represent countless towns. I’d love to hear such passion expressed by writers from other communities, but I wonder if Stamford’s current status as a Connecticut success story has something to do with readers preferring to see Stamford humbled. think. As it turns out, Rihanna has her haters, too.
Not everything on the list is part of a trend (although Valerie Seiling Jacobs’ editorial on pollution from leaf blowers ranked 8th, suggesting more noise will be made on this issue) are doing).
Author Deborah DiSessa Hirsch mourns the loss of Weight Watchers workshops in Stamford and Norwalk, winning second best article of the year. When I told her how this work turned out, she said, Did anyone know? “
That’s what it means to have a voice in this community square. You will find like-minded people (and contrarians).
Many of the topics that top the charts are random. No. 5 concerns the Army’s Blackhawk helicopter. In Part 10, we will explore the future of the new coronavirus vaccine for the elderly. In episode 12, columnist Alma Rutgers shares her musings on housing. 14th place added her AI to the list. Mr. Bailey’s column on the dangers of Gov. Ned Lamont’s Pollyanna outlook is No. 16. An article defending the Tweed-New Haven Airport expansion plan ranks 20th, and an article about Connecticut’s investment performance ranks 24th.
Other success stories of my own include a column on the future of malls in Connecticut (7th place) and The Wayward Hunter (18th place), which focused on the use of question marks in headlines. It may be well known that I despise exclamation marks, but I love sexy question marks.
So here’s the lucky 13th column on the list. “Connecticut’s most popular columns in 2022. Gossip? Insults? Politics? What keeps you reading?”
Yes, the 364-day-old MoPopOp column is on the hit list. I wouldn’t mind seeing this get even better. But then, let Rihanna answer my call and write a 2024 hit about whether she loves or hates Stanford and why the university needs to ban gas-powered leaf blowers. I would like you to write it.
John Breunig is the editorial page editor. jbreunig@hearstmediact.com; twitter.com/johnbreunig.
[ad_2]
Source link