It鈥檚 not every day we pull back the curtain and reveal the wizardry that keeps this newspaper churning. But today is that day.
As newspapers move increasingly over to the digital realm, it becomes easier to measure what stories are being read and the reading habits of online readers. And sometimes these habits can be a little dispiriting to a hardened journalist easily aroused by community news and municipal policy.
Case in point: Do you know what the most read story on our website is at this very moment?
It鈥檚 a story about
Apparently, someone noticed a bag of chips from a local company in a recent episode of The Big Bang Theory. Did the bag of chips talk or further the plot of The Big Bang Theory? No, it was in the background of one scene.
But one of our sister papers wrote a story about the appearance of said bag of chips and it became one of the most read stories of the day, if not the week. So we reposted the same story in hopes of some of that viral digital dust rubbing off on us. And it did. Oh god, did it ever.
The same thing happened the other week when we posted a story from one of our sister publications about giving away free travel mugs. Web traffic went through the roof.
Don鈥檛 get us wrong. We will often post stories on housing, real estate, the opioid crisis, city hall etc. that many of you will read.
But right now, at this moment in time, more of you are reading about a bag of chips than anything else.
So what are we to do? Clearly, our reporters are not going to start following the chip beat. How many stories about bags of chips are there in a given week, anyway?
But something needs to be done.
Which is why, we here at K&K are going to focus more on what matters to the lumpen online masses, the digital hordes, the stimulus-addicted populous. Here鈥檚 a list of stories we鈥檙e working on for next week:
- A plate of nachos with its own Instagram account. Apparently the cheese and guacamole don鈥檛 get along and like to diss each other in the comments section. It is crazy.
- A cute dog that used to only drink Starbucks Caramel Macchiatos has now switched over to the new Juniper Winter Lattes. And the baristas still can鈥檛 spell his name correctly! 听
- Turns out that bag of chips from The Big Bang Theory just got its own spinoff sitcom called Tragically Chip. It鈥檚 about a family of chips who are down on their luck but stick together through thick and thin.
- After posting racist comments on Twitter, the bag of chips is fired from its own show. The remaining cast then get their own series called The Chips.
- The singer of recently disgraced metal band teams up with the fired racist bag of chips, the plate of nachos with the lit Instagram account and the cute dog addicted to Starbucks Juniper Winter Lattes and forms a band called Testicular Hamster. The internet then implodes and shuts down for three days. But on the fourth day, the internet returns wet and new, like a chrysalis transforming into a beautiful butterfly. Except that butterfly loves Starbuck鈥檚 new Juniper Winter Lattes and has an Instagram account that is off the hook.听
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