Looking back at my most-read stories and posts from the past 12 months always provides an interesting – if incomplete – picture of the big news of the year.

This year’s big story by Web traffic was, unsurprisingly, 38 Studios. In fact, when I pulled the numbers I found almost the ​entire​ list would be 38 Studios based on sheer traffic. So I’ve split the top 12 list into two lists of six: the top six 38 Studios stories/posts, and the top six non-38 Studios stories posts.

Let’s go to the tape!

38 Studios

#1: 38 Studios misses payroll, can’t pay RI (May 17) – This may have been the most dramatic day of the 38 Studios saga – the day it became clear just how severe the company’s financial troubles were. It was also the most farcical, with the sudden announcement late that afternoon that the company had given a bad check to cover an overdue payment.

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Regular readers know I write lots of items that use charts, graphs and numbers. That’s not because I’m a big fan of arithmetic – I was actually a terrible math student, as my K-12 teachers will attest – but rather because, as a political reporter, numbers offer an avenue to get past spin.

I know that old line about “damn lies and statistics,” and I realize numbers can be massaged and shaded. But that’s where, hopefully, professional reporting skills come in – and thanks to WPRI 12′s continued investment in local news, I have the time to try and really understand the numbers I’m looking at and find the ones that matter. A political leader can tell us he’s investing in education or cutting spending – but what do the actual audited figures show?

I bring all this up because The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, who helped create the professional public-policy blogger gig, explained this philosophy simply and nicely in a post today about President Obama’s budget:

I love budgets. And not just because I love tables, charts and appendixes — though, to be clear, I do. I love budgets because they force us to run the numbers, to make trade-offs, to set priorities. The annual budget is, frankly, about as honest as the government ever gets with itself, and with the American people.

Well put.

Update: A reader writes in to argue Klein’s point is actually more valid on the state and local level:

I like Ezra Klein’s quote, but it’s not 100% accurate. Since the federal government can run deficits, the trade-offs aren’t as direct (since the impact of deficits aren’t clearly felt or recognized by the average citizen). When you do it as a state and have to balance the budget, then the trade-offs are much clearer.

The year is almost through, and with it my first full year writing this blog for WPRI. Which of the (many) posts I cranked out drew the most individual clicks?

I agree with Dan Kennedy that this is a somewhat incomplete picture of what gets read. For one thing, the posts used to be available on the main page in full and you didn’t have to click on a post to read it all the way. (Some shorter posts are still run in full there.) Also, the biggest stories run as regular articles on WPRI.com.

Still, I think this is an interesting snapshot. Without further ado, then, my annotated top 12 of 2011 – and thank you, as always, for reading!

#1. Analysis: Why Rhode Island passed pension reform in 2011 (Nov. 17) – No surprise here. Pensions were probably the topic I wrote about most, and this column-esque piece from the night the Raimondo-Chafee bill passed the House and Senate was my attempt to put the year’s events in perspective.

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