The Summerland Advocate-Messenger - Reliable, Trustworthy Reporting, Capturing The Heartbeat Of Our Community

Every year, as the new year approaches, we scour newspapers to see how each approaches its top list of articles. Some break it down by category. Others separate local from national news. Some choose not to report a list.

We see merits in all of those approaches.

While the top 10 stories listed below are based strictly on the number of unique visitors to that story's dedicated web page, we, as publishers, feel a number of important - and a few fun - articles didn't make the cut.

One of our favorite stories we shared this year was the life and untimely death of Katherine Nan Koinzan, daughter...