The New York Times recently published a list of its most-read stories in 2013.
It's a fascinating mix of stuff, both news and features. As with many such lists, it shows what people actually want to read, as opposed to what other people think they want to (or should) read. Zach Seward of Quartz recently tweeted the whole list:
New York Times, Zach Seward
Also noteworthy:
The folks at Capital New York point out that the single most-read story in the entire publication last year was created not by one of the Times' many Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists but by an intern (who, wisely, has since been hired full-time):
Josh Katz who has a background in statistics created "How Yall, Youse and You Guys Talk," with graphics editor Wilson Andrews. The final product was inspired by a study Katz created in grad school that was based on the Harvard Dialect Survey, and became a viral smash in December.. Now that his internship is over, he will start as a staff editor with the Times' new data journalism project in the next few weeks.
For what it's worth, we published our own version of the "how different people say the same thing" story last summer. It too, went bananas. Check it out below: