COMING FRIDAY: Press editors offer their Top 10 local stories of the year

If it bleeds, it leads.

That old saw about what attracts newspaper readers has held up well in recent years when we review the most-read articles on cdapress.com.

But in 2021? Not so much. This year, columns, not calamity, ruled the readers' roost.

As of Wednesday, cdapress.com had generated 11,667,587 unique pageviews during the year, according to Google Analytics. The most popular categories were, in order, obituaries, local news and letters to the editor.

But an analysis of the analytics shows that death and destruction, typically the most-read stories on the website, took a back seat to interesting but somewhat puzzlingly popular prose from Press pundits.

Here are the most-read articles of the year. Maybe you can figure out why.

1) COLUMN: The children live in fear, by Tyler Wilson

Wilson, the longtime Press and Coeur Voice columnist, was king of the hill with this Oct. 27 piece, which opened as follows:

"Fear should be fun on Halloween. By the time Oct. 31 rolls around, however, I’m always burned out on dealing with the various fears of my children, most of which have nothing to do with ghouls and monsters."

Wilson then proceeded to describe in less-than-gory detail what keeps his four young kids wide-eyed in the dark - and concludes with the fact that nothing scares his 8-year-old son at all.

“As his dad, I can’t think of anything more terrifying," he wrote.

2) COLUMN: Could 10.0 quake be brewing? by Randy Mann

The Press meteorologist’s weekly column, Weather or Not, sent seismic ripples through the readership world on April 26.

Spoiler alert: In dissecting a rash of earthquakes at the time, Mann wrote that a 10.0 quake "is not possible because the earthquakes are related to the length of faults, or cracks in the Earth. The big quake in China in 1960 had a fault of 1,000 miles long and there is no known fault long enough to trigger such an event."

3) COLUMN: Using your checkbook can backfire, by Terri Dickerson

AKA the CDA Press Consumer Gal, Dickerson opened her weekly column on Aug. 5 with this gripping scenario:

"Imagine logging into your bank account and discovering that your checking account has been drained.

"You have bills to pay and no money to pay them.

"That's what happened recently to a Coeur d’Alene resident."

The tale ended happily for the customer who had more than $5,000 stolen from his checking account. The money was restored by his bank. Unfortunately, the bad guys in India also got away with the crime - and the original $5k.

4) COLUMN: Crocodiles, by Syd Albright

Another weekly Press columnist, Albright shined his Feb. 21 History Corner spotlight on some serious chompers: Giant crocs.

"In January 1945 near the end of World War II, the British Indian Army was driving the Japanese out from Burma. On Ramree Island in the Indian Ocean, 225 miles northwest of Rangoon (now Yangon), the Japanese faced a more terrifying enemy than the Allied forces — giant crocodiles.

"British Indian Army Lieutenant-General Jack F.R. Jacob recounted in his book, Odyssey in Peace and War, 'Over a thousand soldiers of the Japanese garrison retreated into the crocodile-infested mangrove swamps.

“'We went in with boats and interpreters using loudhailers asking them to come out. Not a single one did. Saltwater crocodiles, some of them well over 20 feet in length frequented these waters. It is not difficult to imagine what happened to the Japanese who took refuge in the mangroves.'”

5) COLUMN: Proof of massive election fraud finally emerges, by Jim Jones

The opinion piece penned by former Idaho Attorney General Jim Jones on Nov. 5 might not have been quite what many readers were expecting.

"Donald Trump has been obsessed with the idea that fraud, perpetrated before, during and after the 2020 election, affected the outcome," Jones opened.

"The mainstream media has repeatedly debunked these claims, but Trump and many of his supporters persist in claiming that there was massive election fraud last year."

The body of the column was unkind to the theory that the former president got gypped out of his job.

Jones' concluding paragraph: "So, yes, there has been a concerted effort to perpetrate election fraud on the American people, just as Trump has been proclaiming. The problem is that the fraudsters are not the Democrats but, rather, Trump and his co-conspirators."

6) BREAKING NEWS: Missing vehicle found with body inside it

The article was posted at 6:17 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 23, documenting a local tragedy.

"COEUR d'ALENE — A body was found Saturday in a vehicle submerged in Fernan Lake.

"According to a Coeur d'Alene Police Department release Saturday evening, the body was found in a white 2013 Toyota Highlander that had been reported missing for almost a month. The vehicle was last seen being driven by Sharon Archer, 62, Coeur d'Alene, on Sept. 28.

"Last weekend and again on Wednesday, police said, a fisherman who frequents Fernan Lake saw something white submerged in water near the boat ramp. After seeing something on Facebook about the missing woman, he contacted police."

7) LOCAL NEWS: Cd'A School District at center of human rights hurricane

The Jan. 10 article dominated The Press front page that day and also picked up plenty of eyeballs on cdapress.com. The story - which refuses to die as the year comes to a close - involves a 10-year-old student who sought guidance about gender transitioning.

The debate pitted human rights activists and school district officials against an irate grandmother, her supporters and a Massachusetts-based organization that helped set up a local demonstration.

It wasn't the last school district demonstration of the year, either, as allegations of critical race theory being taught helped fan the flames of some furious patrons.

8) LOCAL NEWS: National comic strip goes deep in N. Idaho

On Dec. 26, Sherman's Lagoon star character started a week-long sojourn from the Columbia River to the Bayview submarine testing facility in Lake Pend Oreille.

This short story accompanied by the first-day strip alerted readers to a week of fun on The Funnies Page - which is still running, by the way.

9) LOCAL NEWS: Warning from 2,383 miles away: Post Falls School Board candidate’s hometown issues warning

With the local election approaching, this Oct. 24 article highlighted the strong sentiments of some of David Reilly's staunchest critics: People who knew him and his perceived misogynistic and antisemitic leanings well.

Here's how the story opened:

"POST FALLS — A hometown hero he’s not.

"National headlines and local individuals condemning Post Falls school board candidate David Reilly have reached back to Bloomsburg, Pa., where many who knew Reilly aren’t surprised. They are, however, alarmed the recent transplant is trying to oversee a North Idaho school district.

"Bloomsburg Stand Against Hate issued a statement to The Press reinforcing many of the concerns already raised about the candidate."

Reilly, endorsed by the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee, went on to lose the election - but still captured 47 percent of the vote.

10) COLUMN: Come on inn, the waterfront's fine, by Nils Rosdahl

This popular Sunday business column struck a chord with tens of thousands of online readers Dec. 26 (maybe the Sherman's Lagoon fans also love Nils). The top item was about the new 12-room Lake Coeur d'Alene Inn on east Sherman Avenue.

And with that, we hang a NO VACANCY sign on this year's Top 10 online stories.