In the last 12 months, Slate has published approximately 18,000 articles, blog posts, photo galleries, videos, cartoons, interactive games, maps, and podcasts. If I had to guess, 6,000 of them were excellent, 10,000 of them were solid, 1,850 of them were mediocre, and 100 of them were absolutely dreadful. (No, I’m not telling you which ones.)
And then there are the remaining 50 stories, the fabulous 50. Even cynical Slate editors who spend their off days drowning kittens smile when they read these stories. Slate commenters suspend their usual disappointment for these stories, and offer a grudging “Not bad.”
Fifty is too many for a year-end list, so here are 11 staff favorites instead. We haven’t crammed the list with those long stories you felt guilty about skipping the first time. The lineup mixes long and short, funny and angry and heartfelt. Here they are, in chronological order.
1. “The Guantánamo Memoirs of Mohamedou Ould Slahi”
By Mohamedou Ould Slahi, May 2
The only first-person account of life at Gitmo ever published by a current prisoner.
2. “You Won’t Finish This Article”
By Farhad Manjoo, June 6
But you got this far, didn’t you?
3. “Don’t Say Goodbye When You Leave a Party. Just Ghost.”
By Seth Stevenson, July 3
Do you feel awkward whenever you leave a party? Read this.
4. “I Picked My Daughter up at the Camp I Went to 36 Years Ago. Camp’s the Same, She’s Changed.”
By John Dickerson, July 22
Dickerson is our chief political correspondent. Where does he get off writing so beautifully about his family? This is about what happened when he picked his daughter up at camp. That’s all. You’ll probably cry.
5. “How Fast Can You Put These Ridiculously Gerrymandered Congressional Districts Back Together?”
By Chris Kirk, Aug. 21
Usually gerrymandering is a worthy but dull topic. Not when it’s a jigsaw puzzle!
6. “If It Happened There … the Government Shutdown”
By Josh Keating, Sept. 30
How the U.S. media would have reported on the government shutdown if it had happened in another country. The first in a series: The follow-up about how the U.S. media would report on Thanksgiving if it happened elsewhere might be even funnier.
7. “Juan Linz’s Bad News for America”
By Matt Yglesias, Oct. 2
This piece about why the American system of government is heading for collapse ran right as the government shut down in October. It’s incredibly smart. Also incredibly depressing.
8. “The Best Rape Prevention: Tell College Women to Stop Getting So Wasted”
By Emily Yoffe, Oct. 15
This piece made readers angrier than anything else we published in 2013.
9. “The Eternal Backpack Question, Answered: Is It Cooler to Two-Strap or to One-Strap?”
By Forrest Wickman, Oct. 31
From 1965 until 1995, all cool kids carried their backpacks with one strap. Then, overnight, it changed. What happened? How did it happen? Why did it happen? For sheer crazy obsessive brilliance, nothing in Slate topped this Forrest Wickman story.
10. “Nazi Science Is Still Haunting Anatomy and Fueling Conservatives’ Worst Anti-Abortion Arguments”
By Emily Bazelon, Nov. 6
How did some American abortion opponents develop their bizarre theories about rape and pregnancy? Emily Bazelon follows a dark and winding path back to loathsome Nazi doctors and their horrid experiments.
11. “The Real Story of Linda Taylor, America’s Original Welfare Queen”
By Josh Levin, Dec. 19
The stranger-than-true story of Linda Taylor, a notorious symbol of ‘70s welfare fraud who went on to greater, and more heinous crimes.
