When I began considering the most significant stories of the year for 2016, a number of criteria bounced through my brain. I know what I think is the biggest story of the year. I have a pretty good idea what the biggest story of the year was in terms of Facebook discussion. There is, however, another way to determine the biggest story of the year. It’s pretty cut and dried with little room for debate.
This is the Internet age and, with the click of a button, we can generate all kinds of data regarding our content. The easiest and most accurate way of determining the story of the year is to simply look at those stories that generated the most website clicks.
We post all of our stories to our Facebook page. However, many people simply read the headline and the teaser on Facebook and leave it there. But how many people took the time to go from Facebook and read a story on www.douglasnow.com?
When I started looking at those numbers, what I found surprised me tremendously. The biggest story of 2016, the one that drove most of you to stop what you were doing and actually read the story, was “Douglas the 13th most dangerous city in the nation.”
Posted on June 7, the story, only 184 words long, listed the most dangerous cities in the United States as compiled by SafeWise, a safety and home security news group. SafeWise made its list using the latest available FBI Crime Report statistics and population data. The numbers are from 2014 and includes cities with more than 10,000 people that reported those statistics.
So Douglas isn’t really the 13th most dangerous city in the nation – it’s the 13th most dangerous city that reported those statistics. It’s a minor distinction but one worth noting. No matter how you look at it, though, our fair city has far too many instances of crime. According to the SafeWise report, cities in the U.S. reported an average of 29 incidents per 1,000 residents. The cities on its list, however, reported an average of 109 per 1,000. Douglas reported 9.06 violent crimes and 92.75 property crimes per 1,000 people as it secured its #13 ranking.
While most people were apparently very interested in our crime rate, their concern stopped there. In the countywide sheriff’s election, which took place about five months after this story came out, voters re-elected the current sheriff by a fairly large margin. So either their concern was merely a curiosity or people believe that within the next four years, current law enforcement leaders can reverse this trend.
Following this story were “Five charged in Alma homicide” and “Douglas physician creates revolutionary spinal alignment system.” The former story outlines the individuals charged in the June 18 murder of Tony Overstreet Jr., 30, of Alma. Overstreet’s body was found at the intersection of East 11th Street and North Ware Street in Alma. Pierre Alston, 24; Jerome Maxwell, 20; Keitric McCaskey, 21; Lataysha Morgan, 20; and Nyiesha Nails, 20 were charged in the murder. Morgan and Nails were charged with giving false statements and writings, and the concealment of facts. The other three were charged with a variety of offenses, including felony murder and armed robbery. At the time we published the story, all had been arrested but McCaskey.
The latter story was a press release sent to us by Coffee Regional Medical Center that discussed the Syzygy Stabilization System pioneered by Dr. Hewatt McGraw Sims of CRMC. The system, which Dr. Sims created, is a new treatment for spondylolisthesis, a spinal condition in which one bone in the back slides forward over the bone below it.
So there you have it – the biggest stories of the year were our high crime rate, a Bacon County murder, and aching backs. I wouldn’t have thought those three would top the list. But they do. Isn’t the Internet wonderful?