Part of my job on the USA TODAY Network national desk has been to spot intriguing stories from the sites with the potential to go viral. So I look at a lot of real-time metrics and use my gut to see what makes sense to share with a wider audience.
2018 had more than 20 mass killings where four or more people, not including the shooter, died.
Less than a week before The Post Crescent in Appleton, Wisconsin, reported this story on a small business that was giving employees a handgun as their holiday gift, a dozen people had been killed in a bar in Thousand Oaks, California, and more than a dozen others had been injured. Less than three weeks before, 11 people were massacred at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Guns were on readers’ minds.
I discovered the story within hours of its initial publication. Although I mentioned it to our business editors, I knew it needed to be posted quickly and did it myself, adding a little mention of where Hortonville, Wisconsin, is located and a little about the company.
Also within hours, our version had almost 350,000 page views.
