At the end of every December, many media outlets take a look back at the biggest stories of the year. Some are light-hearted and fun, others are grim.
Summary
The Associated Press recounted the famous and infamous people who died, including veterans and statesmen Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Bob Dole, and Water Mondale.
- Reuters’ compendium of photos included those from the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Taliban soldiers during their retaking of Afghanistan, and protests around the world. The U.S. News. And World Report did the same.
- Military-related stories from 2021 were discussed at The Military Times, including the Russian build-up at the Ukraine border, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the military’s alleged teaching of Critical Race Theory at the military academies.
- Adding a “local news” flair to the look back on 2021, WJAR’s Jessica Botelho listed her favorite stories from each month, including actor Kevin Bacon visiting a local eatery and a medical marijuana company making the world’s largest pot brownie.
- Axios created a graph detailing the news trends of the year, including inflation, critical race theory, Britney Spears, Afghanistan, and Alec Baldwin.
- To their credit, left-wing “explainer” outlet Vox reflected on their predictions at the beginning of the year, assessing how well they did at predicting the future.
- CNN laid the bias on thick in their look back, highlighting “restrictive” new voting laws, excoriating global leaders for not doing enough to combat climate change, and framing the withdrawal from Afghanistan as a major victory for Biden.
- Huffington Post reminisced over “celebrity coming out” stories that gave them the warm and fuzzies.
- Breitbart set their sights on CNN, listing 15 of the liberal network’s biggest blunders this year, including their medical correspondent being stumped by podcaster Joe Rogan, various reporters’ political bias, and the collapse of their audience.
- The Dispatch compiled fact checks from throughout the year, focusing those efforts on trying to debunk wildfire stories from the right and obsessing over Donald Trump.
- The New York Post revisited unsolved crimes in New York City, including the death of a seven year old girl, brutal home invasions, and the subway mugging of a Thai supermodel.
© Dallas Gerber, 2021