• by Erik Sass , Staff Writer @eriksass1, December 9, 2015

‘Tis the season for year-end roundups! 

The New York Times’ Upshot blog, which specializes in 'splaining things with numbers and stuff, published an analysis of the newspaper’s most read articles in 2015, as determined by a somewhat unusual measure -- total time spent reading the articles, rather than more familiar metrics like total page views or unique visitors.

The time-spent reading metric is interesting because it gives some insight into engagement rather than simple reach. An article which attracts a smaller cohort of very engaged readers could theoretically rank higher than an article merely glanced at by a larger group.

Presumably, the length of the articles also plays a significant role, as a scintillating long-form piece will necessarily score higher than a brief “just the facts, ma’am” news item.

Above all, what the NYT most-read (by time spent) list reveals is the importance of lifestyle content in the newspaper’s online publishing strategy -- and I would note that in this case, “lifestyle content” also often means content targeting female readers in particular.

Thus, the No. 1 most-read article of the year on the was a quirky post-slash-quiz for two in the “Fashion & Style” vertical, titled “Big Wedding or Small?” that you could easily imagine finding on any number of women’s interest pubs.

The second most-read article, “How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life,” isn’t lifestyle content so much as a cautionary tale about the impact of technology on our society. The first appearance of “hard news” comes in the third most-read place -- the damning investigative piece on Amazon’s corporate culture, “Inside Amazon.”

In fifth place (fourth place was another version of the quiz from the top spot) was a bizarre “truth is stranger than fiction” tale about two sets of identical twins mixed up at birth in Bogota, Colombia. In sixth place is the first piece of breaking news, reporting that the South Carolina policeman caught shooting Michael Scott on video would be charged with murder.

Lifestyle and service content rounds out the top 10, with “The Moral Bucket List,” “The Lonely Death of George Bell,” “52 Places to Go in 2015” and “My Own Life.” In summary, lifestyle and service content makes up six out of the top 10 most read articles.

While you can argue about category definitions, by my count, 17 of the top 50 most read articles on the NYT in 2015 fell in the lifestyle or service categories, while 17 were investigative reporting, four were infographics or backgrounders, two were op-eds, one was a profile (Tom Brady) and one was an obituary (Leonard Nimoy).

Just eight were breaking news.