AlamogordoTownNews.com: Susan Payne, Couy Griffin, Anthony Lucero, Sports History and Mariachi's led the news for 2021

Most popular stories of 2021 on AlamogordoTownNews.com Site

Local news, local stories that is AlamogordoTownNews.com - Susan Payne, Couy Griffin and Anthony Lucero were readership headliners for 2021.

AlamogordoTownNews.com was created as a citizens journalism project. We have sought out more local involvement to provide content from the local perspective verses big media conglomerates and national messaging.

We continue to seek citizens that would like to participate in crafting news stories as citizen journalist. Our only requirement on citizen sponsored content is that it is documented with facts and not subjective opinions. We will of course allow opinion pieces in our editorial pages as long as sourced and not personal attacks or vendettas. We strive to be a place for positive news as much as possible.

Non-profits, send us your news in an email or press release we will run your story, school reporters in the high schools and middle schools, let’s get a school reporter to submit articles each week and we will happily publish and build your resume.

The local university, we’d love to hear from you. If you are a citizen journalist this is your platform to present ideas so in 2022 let’s hear more from you.

In 2021 we ran a series of articles from historical stories on the sports program of Alamogordo High School dating back to 1906 to the story of Frenchie’s Cabin and Oliver Lee Park each of these garnered many new readers not only in Alamogordo but across the nation.

Politics can always be testy at the best of times and contentious at the worst of times.

The mayor’s race and the 20 questions for the Alamogordo Mayoral candidates at the time, Susan Payne and Nadia Sikes led our online newspaper to increased readership and these stories ranked 2nd in overall readership for the year.

If readers of a story were any indication of how the race would turn out, then we could have called it as Susan Paynes 20 questions and her resume had the 2nd most page views of any news story we ran last year. Nadia Sykes resume and 20 questions ranked in the top 20 for readership.

If interest in a news story were votes, then Otero County Commissioner Couy Griffin would certainly be the top vote getter. Stories around the recall effort of Couy Griffin topped our readers interest and stories around his finances, recall effort and travels garnered 10 of the top 20 news stories read in full for the year 2021 with our readers.

Potholes, the sewer line drama along the McKinley channel and the citizens survey and concerns of city inaction to lines broken by the contractor on McKinley Avenue spurred the most public comments sent into our editors, and the most comments on social media, yet the result of the series is still an impasse. Alamogordo’s citizens are still responsible for expenses related to sewer line repairs when at the connection point of the city street
unlike many other communities in New Mexico.

Interest in Alamogordo sports stories ran high, and rounded out the bottom 6 stories of our top 20. Football stories are always of interest, but the win of the Girls State Track and Field title last season was the top sports story for our online paper in 2021. There was also significant comment and attention given by our readers to the release of the Coach Bob Sepulveda’s book series volumes 1 and 2 this year and the naming of the Alamogordo Track and Field in honor of 85-year-old Coach Bob Sepulveda.

Arts and cultural stories are the most fun for the editorial staff at the AlamogordoTownNews.com and stories showcasing local spinning artist, Linda Swenson led the pack of human-interest stories with a focus on the arts. The stories on the book signings at Roadrunner Emporium by BJ Oquist and Josette Herrell and the Bob Sepulveda book series release piqued much interest.

Interestingly, the story of the controversies around KALH’s Anthony Lucero’s suspension and potential termination from the airwaves and then rehiring by the station during the peak of the Couy Griffin recall was the number 3 story of the year for both calls and comments to our editorial staff and in the number of readers of the story. What was most intriguing on the data around the controversy of Mr. Lucero was 35% of the story’s readers were from outside of the region and geographic data showed a large faction of people from the east coast and Midwest following the controversy around him remaining as a radio personality. Our gut was that it became a question of censorship to those outside of the area who read the story on our national blogs. But who really knows the thoughts of readers?

Our favorite stories of the year were those around the Mariachi’s at the Flickinger Center for the Performing Arts and the hundreds of children we witnessed watching the free educational performance.

Our second most favorite stories were the stories we were able to publish with a focus on the non-profits and the good that they deliver in services to our community. What made those stories even more important to us, was several included, our ability to give and support those agencies and the good they provide, not just with words, but with tangible cash for them to apply to their mission of service.

We published 927 locally focused stories in 2021 showcasing a diverse dialog of ideas. We hope to continue to grow and publish even more local stories in 2022.

We value the feedback of our readers and again ask that you help us in being a relevant local news source by also providing us with content.

Citizen journalism is the foundation to a free and equitable democracy, but it takes work, capital, and participation.

We seek your participation in expanding the story and spreading the word to the world about what is right about Alamogordo.

Please join us in this journey and let’s spread positivity when we can and create a community of respect of one another.

Happy New Year 2022.

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