The Lewiston Sun Journal has posted, in the midst of their current home page, a new listing (with links) of their most viewed news articles for 2006. Their earlier listing of the general story of Turner, Maine’s mysterious monster as number six was based on unknown criteria. This new online-based ranking of individual articles reinforces the common knowledge of those working at the paper – the Mystery Beast stories last summer sold the most newspapers for the L/A media organization over the most days in the reporters’ recent memory.

As you can see below, story numbers 1, 5, and 9, were about the so-called “Maine Mutant,” in articles by Mark LaFlamme. Crime beat reporter LaFlamme also wrote articles #8 and #10, so he actually was responsible for half the top ten.

Click on the Lewiston Sun Journal photograph by Douglas Van Reeth, to enlarge it. Reproduced with permission.

Here’s the full list:

January 19, 2007

Top Ten Stories of 2006

#1 Mysterious beast

#2 Flying object spooks man

#3 Why are sex words our worst swearwords?

#4 Nude teens test Vt. limits

#5 “Like horns of a devil”

#6 Infant left inside car; 2 charged

#7 ‘Sorry… my baby needs diapers’

#8 City man slain; son charged

#9 Verdict: It’s a dog

#10 Car crash kills teen

Goofy as the Maine Mutant by Peter Loh.

The illustration, then his tee-shirts’ logo, by Mike Lemos.

Cryptozoology rocks. It also sells newspapers.

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Update: January 20th – Mark LaFlamme has written a new blog, “Above the Fold: You can’t handle the truth,” about this.