readers say
The people—or at the very least the individuals who make up Boston.com's readership—have spoken. There's been loads of news in 2024, but these are the stories that readers have cited because the ones that intrigued them essentially the most over the past 12 months.
In total, readers submitted greater than 500 responses to our survey. Below is a countdown of the five they mentioned most frequently, followed by six more that appear slightly below. (And how much do you bet that at the very least just a few of those will appear on the list again next 12 months?)
5. Massachusetts gets (a part of) the eclipse (7%)
Okay, so Boston wasn’t on the “path of totality.” We'll see our own total solar eclipse on May 1, 2079 (the toughest a part of the wait), but within the meantime, Boston.com readers seemed content to get their very own little piece of the natural phenomenon here last April. Silly glasses were commonplace, schools and businesses stopped all the things to observe it, and lots of people actually traveled north to New Hampshire and Vermont to see the thing in its entirety. (Although a lot of them apparently had difficulty returning home.)
4. Pro-Palestinian protests on campus (11%)
The Boston area has many colleges and lots of students who aren’t particularly afraid to talk their minds. So it probably made sense that when students began protesting the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, our schools can be a hotbed of such activity. And indeed, MIT, Tufts, and Emerson led the best way, followed by Harvard, Northeastern, UMass Amherst, Dartmouth, and UNH, amongst others. Even the Rhode Island School of Design got involved, occupying a part of an administration constructing. Last spring, protests, encampments, arrests, and resignations looked as if it would occur virtually day by day, and readers followed the live updates with interest (and possibly no small amount of concern).
3. Bill Belichick says goodbye (13%)
One of two sports stories to make our top five, a big variety of readers pointed to Bill Belichick's departure from the Patriots team he led to 6 Super Bowl championships. Even though this happened in early January, readers reported that his departure had taken up loads of their sporting headspace throughout 2024 – perhaps because he continued to make headlines, whether due to his opinion of the team he left behind or due to his love life (Couples Halloween costume, anyone?) or his eventual landing as a coach in North Carolina.
2. Celtics are national champions (19%)
While they might not have had the juice of our ubiquitous #1 story mentioned below, readers named our Boston Celtics the second most fascinating story of the 12 months, with their decisive championship win over the Dallas Mavericks in June dispelling any doubt about it: arguably the most effective team by far within the NBA. It almost makes you’re feeling sorry for all the opposite teams that don't have Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown, a cadre of wonderful backup players, and coach Joe Mazzulla, who churns out the present quotes like an internet-era Yogi Berra. Oh, and their save was pretty good too.
1. The Karen Read Saga (28%)
In a 12 months that saw greater than just a few disturbing murder stories unfold – the cases of Brian Walshe and Lindsay Clancy come to mind – one by far caught people's attention essentially the most. The Karen Read trial made headlines and sparked water cooler discussions far beyond Boston, leading practically everyone to the logical assumption that it might eventually turn out to be a Netflix documentary. Which after all it would be.
As you almost certainly recall, prosecutors allege Read was driving drunk and intentionally crashed her SUV into her boyfriend, Boston Police Officer John O'Keefe, as he dropped him off at a house party in January 2022. And Read's lawyers claim that O “Keefe was actually beaten by people in the house (and attacked by the family dog).” It's a suitcase that has all the things, including a Turtleboy. And since her first trial led to a mistrial, we are able to do all of it again next April.
Honorable Mentions:
Trump is making progress sparsely: People affiliated with the MAGA movement probably shouldn't get too upset — Massachusetts remained firmly within the green in November's presidential election, with Kamala Harris receiving about 61% of the vote. But Donald Trump took the entire thing on his own, and readers (well, about half of them) identified that his gains even among the many liberal crowd were a key a part of his booming comeback – he topped ten Massachusetts cities, who voted for Biden in 2020, and narrowed the gap in lots of others. Meanwhile, the anti-Trump section immediately began arguing about what impact his policies might need on the situation within the Bay State.
The massive refugee crisis: Thanks to the state’s “right to shelter” law, migrants were in all places — at Logan Airport, in converted community centers, in hotels and in a closed prison. And despite Gov. Maura Healey's increasingly strict shelter-in-place guidelines, the problem stays a thorn in her side.
Crime in Downtown Boston: A wave of shoplifting and violence within the Common – which many blamed on problems that spread from Mass.'s former camps of homeless and addicted people. & Cass spread – caused great consternation among the many townspeople. However, Mayor Michelle Wu assures us that Boston stays the safest big city in America.
Voting questions: There were five! And three — authorizing a legislative review, eliminating MCAS as a graduation requirement, and allowing rideshare drivers to unionize — were actually passed. Sorry, psychedelics and increased minimum wage.
The arrest of Tania Fernandes Anderson: It happened just just a few weeks ago, but Boston City Councilman Fernandes Anderson's arrest on public corruption charges — involving a $7,000 money payment in a City Hall bathroom — immediately caused a stir in Boston's political scene. (One reader even suggested that outgoing President Joe Biden should pardon her.)
State Police Problems: As if State Trooper Michael Proctor's classless texts revealed throughout the Read trial weren't enough, the mysterious training death of recruit Enrique Delgado Garcia solid one other shadow over the organization. Plus all of the cheating. (Your run-of-the-mill city police departments haven't gotten off easy either. Case in point: the Sara Birchmore case in Stoughton.)
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