EDITORIAL: Help me choose top stories, people of 2024
It’s December now.
This past weekend after we ate the final bits of Thanksgiving turkey and I watched the Iron Bowl in hopes that my favorite team would somehow back their way into the first-ever 12-team college football playoff, we got our Christmas tree and the kids decorated it.
Christmas time is here.
A week after that is New Year’s.
For respectable news outlets like The Post (and unrespectable like others), the end of the calendar year is a time to look back on the previous 12 months.
Readers of The Post who pay attention can bank on five pieces running in the end of year edition each year - person of the year, newsmaker of the year, top 10 news stories of the year, sports person of the year and top 10 sports stories of the year.
I’ll spend some time each of the next couple of weeks narrowing down my lists for top stories, and I think I’ve got my person of the year chosen.
But tha doesn’t mean I’m not open to suggestions from you, our readers.
So here’s a rundown of what to think about in each of these categories:
Top news stories of the year - what story or stories happened in 2024 that 10 years from now you’ll think back and remember most vividly when someone mentions it?
Top sports stories of the year - pretty much the same as the previous one, except sports only.
Newsmaker of the year - who is someone who appears regularly in this newspaper and on this site that had the greatest impact of anyone else this year - positive or negative?
Person of the year - who is someone here that may not grab headlines and attention but makes some kind of impact or does something important that not many others do?
Sports person of the year - who is someone in the sports community - newsmaker or not - who’s had a memorable impact on the local sports scene or within their sport or saw a large amount of success this year?
All of the criteria (and I use that term loosely) is very vague. It’s kind of like the Heisman Trophy winner for college football fans. There’s no set standard for deciding who is the single best college football player in the country, so it’s hard to define. A record-setting running back could win it one year, but most of the time it simply goes to the best quarterback on the best team because that’s unfortunately who most sports writers that vote for the award think is the best player in the country.
This is where help from you comes in.
I will be the main person choosing these people, and I’ll reach out to some of my friends on both sides of the political aisle for their thoughts before I settle on news things.
And just because I ultimately choose a person or a story doesn’t necessarily mean that 1) my choice is THE right choice or 2) that there aren’t multiple correct choices.
The vagueness in each category is both an advantage and somewhat of a curse because we can choose anyone and because we can choose anyone. Yes, you read that sentence correctly.
So my e-mail is at the end of this column. If you want to ensure I think if a story you think I should consider, let me know.
If there’s a person I should know about that you want to make sure I do, let me know.
Either way, thanks for reading.
Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Reach him through e-mail at brandon@jacksonpost.news. Follow him on X.com @JSEditorBrandon. Follow him on Instagram @EditorBrandon.
