Most popular opinions of ’22
Pop quiz: What will make you keep reading?
A) Gossip about a B-minus list celebrity.
B) Mash notes about your hometown.
C) Grenade lobs of shade at said burg.
D) Insults about the (fill in the blank) Party.
E) Informed, thoughtful musings about the pressing issues of the times in which we live.
Like anything else, the Most Popular Opinion Reads of 2022 could be turned into a Top-20 listicle ranking editorials, letters, columns and op-eds with the most web hits.
By this measure, my colleague Hugh Bailey is the Bad Bunny of hitmakers in 2022. He has four of the 10 most-read pieces of the year (Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 9). Still, even he was humbled by a campy 1970s rocker. Yes, a 258-word letter a Stamford resident wrote about his Little League coach of 40 years ago, aka Meat Loaf, landed in the No. 2 slot after the singer’s death.
Meat Loaf offers a few tips to anyone thinking about sending in a letter or an op-ed. The Album of the Year isn’t awarded to the longest recording. And readers yearn to read about the place where they reside.
One of my favorite examples of this appeared on the 2021 list, when former Norwalk resident Brian O’Neill wrote a letter about moving back into his childhood home during COVID and reembracing his love of his hometown. The letter was just 300 words and was published in only one of the eight daily papers in the Hearst Connecticut Media Group. Yet it was our fifth most-read Opinion piece of 2021. Two spots above it was native New Yorker Amanda Salzano’s love letter to Stamford. So yes, many of you would apparently answer “B” in the pop quiz.
For those who cling to the chestnut that “you only run bad news in the paper,” there is plenty of proof that we welcome verbal hugs as well, and so do readers. “I came to CT for football. I’m staying for love” came in at No 17.
Then there are those of you who tilt toward “C.” You like to see the establishment challenged. Stamford is the state’s own pop star, yet two pieces with snarky headlines and themes (“Stamford is a cultural hellhole …” and “Stamford’s mayor is MIA”) found sizable audiences.
Notice the thread? Local matters. Yet I’ve been trapped for years in a “Russian Doll” roulette of conversations with contributors who try to pitch a regular column containing their reflections on national or international affairs.
We do occasionally publish pieces from experts (having Yale in the hood doesn’t hurt), but this has never been the first stop (or second, third … or 18th) for readers interested in global issues. On the occasions when informed local voices weigh in on such matters, it can resonate. Stamford resident Joanna M. Gwozdziowski, who works for a nonprofit focused on foreign affairs, had the 16th-most read essay, titled “Are we already in World War III?”
Even “A” in the quiz has a qualifier. We’re not TMZ, but when columnist Juan Negroni wrote about a Norwalk boat that drew interest from Paul Newman and Billy Joel, he earned the No. 8 spot on the list.
Our list, of course, does not account for the print reader. That can be a wildly different audience. I’m still answering mail from a column about how Mel Allen might have announced Aaron Judge’s 62nd home run. It didn’t even make the starting lineup online. Meanwhile, last month I was bemoaning that a column I wrote about Eversource removing trees seemed to have dropped in a vacant forest. Zero feedback from readers. It turned out to be my bestread column of the year (at No. 10, two spots ahead of my piece on avoiding paying to enter the beach).
By any count, “most popular” is never synonymous with “best.” One of the top-10 flicks at the box office in 2022 was “Sonic the Hedgehog 2,” which my son walked out on — twice.
In recent years, it’s become common for skeptics to sniff that “nobody reads editorials.” Those numbers never really mattered to me, as we’ve seen cases where just reaching an audience of one can spur change.
It’s also faux news.
Three of the hits in our top-20 were editorials, one about an 88-point high school basketball rout, another on state voices raising the volume against Ticketmaster pricing, and the third addressing soaring utility prices.
Which brings me back to a lesson from the list that is hidden in plain sight: Opinion readers gravitate to serious issues.
The top-read piece of the year was Ridgefield author Rich Cohen’s essay on the tragic death of St. Luke’s hockey player Teddy Balkind. Cohen’s writing was as blunt as his favorite sport (“No one is ever completely safe”). Not everyone agreed with Cohen’s insights, but concern for children unites readers.
The rest of the list is filled with thoughts about weighty topics that impact our lives. Bailey wrote about affordable housing, struggling malls and suggested it was time for vacant Bridgeport theaters to face the wrecking ball (a developer — that audience of one — read it and offered hope the show could go on).
Other top pieces opine on abortion rights, paid leave, and cancer that was discovered after COVID delayed a mammogram.
So, yes, the correct response is “E.” And “D” was the trick answer. None of the top reads are about Democrats, Republicans or otherwise.
Thank you for reading, and for proving there is still a home for public discourse about matters of substance.