The Best of 2021, Part II
The Best of 2021, Part II
Reporting and writing from the past year worth revisiting.
Last week, we shared a collection of stories that you might have missed or otherwise forgotten about, especially if you’ve come to rely on The Postscript for weekly recommendations of some of the best stories on myriad topics. The reason you might have missed those stories if you’ve come to rely on us is simple: We didn’t begin publishing until July.
So those stories linked last week would have taken you through the end of June, right before we started publishing. We served them up in a completely different format from our normal Weekend Reading look, preferring to give you not only the high quality you’ve come to expect but also a large quantity in case you were in need of holiday reading.
This final edition of Weekend Reading for 2021 will also depart from our normal format, but unlike last week, we’ll be recirculating stories from previous editions.
It’s worth taking a by-the-numbers look at 2021 and Weekend Reading. With the publication of this second year-end round-up, there will be 26 editions of Weekend Reading. Within those first 25, there are, by my very unscientific and inexact count, more than 650 discrete links to articles, essays, podcasts, videos, and more.
There were, unsurprisingly, some repeat topics that we returned to because they were massive stories.
COVID-19
COVID-19 tops the list. The editions that had sections that focused on COVID-19 include:
January 6th
Another of the biggest stories of the year happened on January 6th, 2021, so there has been an entire year of diligent reporting on what arguably is one of the biggest stories in recent history. The editions that had sections that focused on the attacks on the Capitol include:
Climate Change
Climate change, and extreme instances of weather that brought the concept to our attention in a more immediate manner, also featured heavily in the news of 2021. The editions that had sections focused on climate change and, relatedly, extreme weather include:
Facebook
Facebook had a bad year, above and beyond the normal pandemic-induced bad year the rest of us suffered through. It was one bombshell after another being broken by reporters and whistleblowers. The editions that had sections focused on Facebook include:
Abortion
The assault on women’s abortion rights was another frequent topic in Weekend Reading. Editions that had sections focused on abortion include:
Those topics are undeniably newsworthy, but that doesn’t mean that all of the Weekend Reading recommendations were hard news. There were numerous celebrations of the arts, like various recently released films, the next must-read novels, sports, and the cult of celebrity through the art of the profile.
Film
July 17th – Anthony Bourdain
October 2nd – The Sopranos
October 30th – The French Dispatch
November 20th – The Academy Awards
And more individual stories, including ones about Siskel and Ebert, neo-noirs from the ’90s, Melvin Van Peebles, and Wes Anderson, to name a few.
Sports
July 10th – Tennis
July 31st – Simone Biles
September 11th – 9/11 Sports Stories
December 18th – Steph Curry
And more individual stories, including ones about Formula 1 racing, Tom Brady, football between New York City’s firemen and cops, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar calling out Lebron James over COVID-19 vaccines, and Matthew Stafford, to name a few.
Celebrities
July 10th – Britney Spears
September 18th – Celebrity Deaths
October 16th – Celebrity Profiles
December 4th – Stephen Sondheim
And more individual stories, including ones about Jason Isbell, Questlove, Regina King, Jeremy Strong, Keanu Reeves, and Hayao Miyazaki, to name a few.
When I think about any year-end list, I naturally think about what, if any, metric is used to judge whether a piece is “worthy” of being included. Some of the lists, like New York’s most-read, uses the simple metric of “total collective minutes of audience engagement.” Other lists take a more subjective approach. One of my favorite trends is a rash of stories from top-notch publications shouting out other publications’ stories under the banner of “Stories We Wish We’d Published.” (Texas Monthly, High Country News, and STAT are examples of publications that recently shared the work of others.)
I, too, decided to go the subjective route. What story did I remember sharing from months ago? Which did I remember, by title or author or topic or publication, to go back and search for? Here are a few that burned themselves in my mind this year.
What Bobby McIlvaine Left Behind — Jennifer Senior, The Atlantic
It’s hard to know just how big a story is outside of my media-obsessed bubble, but if ever a story that the media-obsessed bubble fawned over deserved widespread attention, it’s this one. Everything about this story is pitch-perfect. It’s an anniversary piece for September 11th, 2001; it’s been 20 years, so it’s a big one. There will surely be enough pieces on the occasion to make your head spin. But this one will stand the test of time.
Those were the words I wrote back in August, and I stand by them.
His Name Was Emmett Till — Wright Thompson, The Atlantic
This story was included in the “Some of Our Favorites From the Past Week” section back in July, and so it was shared without comment. But it is an incredible piece of storytelling, of reporting, of revision. The story details the truth about where Emmett Till was murdered, and it’s an incredible piece of time travel via engrossing writing.
Our eyes adjusted to the darkness of the barn where Emmett Till was tortured by a group of grown men. Christmas decorations leaned against one wall. Within reach sat a lawn mower and a Johnson 9.9-horsepower outboard motor. Dirt covered the spot where Till was beaten, and where investigators believe he was killed. Andrews thinks he was strung from the ceiling, to make the beating easier. The truth is, nobody knows exactly what happened in the barn, and any evidence is long gone. Andrews pointed to the central rafter. “That right there is where he was hung at.”
A Secretive Hedge Fund Is Gutting Newsrooms — McKay Coppins, The Atlantic
2021 saw a continuation of the evisceration of local newsrooms across the country as COVID-19 exacerbated many of the difficulties that have challenged newspapers that don’t have the heft of The New York Times or the mega-wealthy investors of The Washington Post and L.A. Times. But one hedge fund in particular is doing untold damage by gobbling up newsrooms and slashing staffs, and, in the process, doing irreparable harm to democracy in the process.
A Haunting New Documentary About Anthony Bourdain — Helen Rosner, The New Yorker
“Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville’s new documentary, Roadrunner, has revived interest in the larger-than-life star that was Anthony Bourdain. In the film, he’s portrayed as both the hero and the villain,” [Helen] Rosner says. She writes: “‘When I’m making a film, I often feel like the instructions are in the box,’ [Neville] told me. ‘How I should tell a story is often expressed by the subject: Mr. Rogers should be simple and deep and loving storytelling; Orson Welles should be chaotic and smart storytelling. And this film — Tony — is all about gray.’”
Those are the words I wrote back in the second-ever edition of Weekend Reading in July. I hadn’t seen the film at that point, but I’d go to see it shortly after, and Neville’s quote about the gray is a perfect encapsulation of the film and its subject.
Jason Sudeikis Is Having One Hell of a Year — Zach Baron, GQ
In a wonderfully meta chat with GQ, Jason Sudeikis discusses the depths of his breakout smash-hit of a character, Ted Lasso, and explores how much the character is like the man, how much the man is like the character, and how similarities between their lives, namely the dissolution of their marriages, unites them. The show is a marvel. It, for the most part, makes the viewer feel so much better after watching it. And, I would submit, so does this article. It feels good to learn this man is like this character we’ve all fallen in love with. It’s a small miracle that so many people close to Sudeikis think highly enough of him to say that he is every bit as good as the character, but it’s even more miraculous that a magazine writer could capture that same feeling on the page.
Who Is the Bad Art Friend? — Robert Kolker, The New York Times Magazine
This in no way is required reading, but at the time it was published, it was the hottest story perhaps all year. It was the discussion online, and there was just something so fun about being a part of that conversation. It’s even more fun if you’re a creative type, as underneath all of the pettiness, there are numerous profound and deeply philosophical questions about the nature of art and what’s owed to the artist and the inspiration.
And that’s it for the year. 2021 is a wrap, and from all of us here at The Postscript, we wish you a happy and healthy 2022.
The Postscript
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