10) Colleges fume at UTSU meeting
Elizabeth Kagedan’s reporting on the UTSU Annual General Meeting hinted at how heated the spring election would become. College council leaders questioned UTSU’s relationship with the CFS, along with what the union was doing with the $500,000 of unspent student money collected for health and dental. One council president even speculated about his college defederating from UTSU, which helped fuel part of the extensive debate that followed in the comments.
9) Cheetah strikes
Kevin Draper’s article on sex addicition, infidelity, and Tiger Woods’ prospects for continuing his golfing career might not have garnered many comments, but it was our ninth most-read story this year. Perhaps all the easy jokes had already been made?
8) Impeached SCSU prez threatens lawsuit
We ran many stories on the lengthy saga of Zuhair Syed’s impeachment, but none were as popular as this one by Yeamrot Taddese. Syed claimed the referendum to remove him was “illegal and unconstitutional,” setting off a firestorm in the comments. Our commentators are generally a fairly respectful bunch, especially compared to the amount of trash talk you see on the sites of the Globe and the Star, but this one got ugly.
7) Point/Counterpoint: Israeli Apartheid Week
Point: Israeli Apartheid Week brings a compelling and important discussion to campus. Counterpoint: Israeli Apartheid Week is an ineffective method to discuss the conflict. Further points: 105 comments, making this debate our most-discussed article of the year.
6) Eye on the election
Jane Bao’s exhaustive piece hit stands right in the middle of the UTSU voting period, detailing the various mini-scandals and added fuel to the fire lit by our next two winners…
5) Orange you glad it’s election season?
This piece, though little more than a captioned photo, became our third-most discussed “article” of the year. Did The Varsity display editorial bias running a shot of Change slate supporters on our cover, clad in their trademark orange scarves? I think our news team are just suckers for a good pun.
4) UTSU elections: win at all costs
The many partisan attacks in the comments on Gabe de Roche and Semra Eylul Sevi’s condemnation of the tactics used by the (ultimately victorious) Stronger Together slate brought this story just shy of the IAW piece in terms of reader response. Again, many accused us of taking sides, though we ran an opinion piece supporting ST in the next issue. One of my favourite comments of the year was on this article, and came from regular contributor Alex Ross: “Also, we have officially endorsed Tom Petty as the best musician of the late ’70s.”
3) Oh my Richard Dawkins!
Alixandra Gould and Luke Savage detail the famous atheist’s return to science, as he sets out to prove the truth of evolution. It’s odd that our third most-popular article, at least in terms of page views, didn’t get a single comment online—unlike politics, it would seem people like to keep their religious views to themselves.
2) What happened to Brock Lesnar?
Mike Cohen details UFC World Heavyweight Champion Brock Lesnar’s health issues in this brief piece. Unexpected traffic from people Googling the ailing pugilist made this article our year’s dark horse.
1) How to Destroy the Book, by Cory Doctorow
By a huge margin, our most popular story of the year was this Doctorow speech transcribed by Jade Colbert. The renowned writer spoke at the National Reading Summit on the dangers of digital copyright laws, and though only 100-odd people got to hear the live version, the Internet brought his warning to the masses. This article was shared on Facebook 743 times, got retweeted nearly 300 times, and got more love from sites like Reddit and Digg. Long live the people of the book…and of the intertubes.
