This year saw a new president, two massive hurricanes, terrorist attacks, horrific mass shootings, and a few good things in-between.
The Daily Caller answered the year with exclusive stories ranging from Thursday night football, the war on the Islamic State, sexual harassment at NBC, and covering CNN’s various (and numerous) missteps.
Our top 10 most read stories of 2017:
The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Richard Pollock, the bane of Hillary Clinton and John Podesta’s existence, discovered an alleged plan by Obama’s national security advisor Susan Rice to keep track of some phone calls made by Donald Trump and his associates during the 2016 campaign. Pollock’s report was so explosive and read by so many it prompted an on-camera denial from Rice herself, though he noticed the wording was a little suspect…
9. It’s Shocking How Empty The Stadium Was For Thursday Night Football
The Daily Caller’s David Hookstead was on the case of the failin’ NFL long before Trump took notice. Hookstead took a look at just how empty Levi’s stadium was on September 22, 2017 and how maybe the entire LA NFL idea may not have been a very good one. Nearly a million people cared enough to see what Hookstead had to say.
8. NBC Made Payment To Staffer After Sexual Harassment Claim Against Chris Matthews
“Handsy Harvey”, “Pervy Mark”, “Sex Toy Matt” and now “Can’t Keep My Mouth Shut Chris”. The Daily Caller’s Amber Athey took a break from driving MSNBC’s Ali Velshi insane to exclusively reveal a sexual harassment payment to a former Chris Matthews employee by MSNBC in 1999. Two sources familiar with a woman harassed by Matthews told Amber he made inappropriate comments and jokes about her while in the company of others. A million people thought it was pretty interesting.
7. Mattis First Day At The Pentagon, ISIS Blown Up 31 Times
The day Jim Mattis took the chair at the Defense Department, the Pentagon dumped 31 JDAM missiles on ISIS positions. Naturally, the now-departed DCNF’s Russ Read figured the pairing of the two would make a good headline. Can we say Mattis ordered every strike personally? No, of course not. But his reputation is anything but nice to America’s enemies, so the strikes seemed like pretty striking serendipity. A couple hundred thousand people shared it on Facebook they liked it so much.
6. Rescued Woman Goes Off On CNN For Hurricane Harvey Coverage
Poor Amber has to watch a lot of CNN to do her job so she knew pretty quickly she’d just witnessed something extraordinary when a distraught woman went OFF on one of their reporters in the midst of escaping Hurricane Harvey. “Y’all sit here, y’all trying to interview people during their worst times — like that’s not the smartest thing to do. Like people are really breaking down and y’all sitting here with cameras and microphones trying to ask us what the f*** is wrong with us.”
5. CNN Reporter: Country Music Fans Are Likely Trump Supporters
Before The Daily Caller’s tears were even dry for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting, liberals were already smearing them for “possibly” being Trump supporters. Amber was on the case once again to catch CNN reporter Jeff Zeleny somehow feeling the need to note that many of the victims of the shooting may have been supporters of the president.
4. CNN Botches Major ‘Bombshell’ Alleging Contacts Between Don Jr. And WikiLeaks
When a CNN story doesn’t smell right Chuck Ross’s nostrils always perk up. This one stunk so bad he could taste it all the way out in Kansas so he called up a few people and got his hands on an email that completely WRECKED a supposed bombshell CNN report. Matt Drudge seemed to like it, CNN definitely did not.
3. Ann Coulter Is Worried The ‘Trump-Haters Were Right’
One day Alex Pfeiffer was recovering from a hangover and decided to give Ann Coulter a ring. She dropped some pretty major concerns to him about Trump and over a million-and-a-half people thought they were worth considering. “I’m not very happy with what has happened so far. I guess we have to try to push him to keep his promises….”
2. Gold Star Widow Releases Trump’s Call After Husband Was Killed In Afghanistan
The DCNF’s Henry Rodgers thought it was a pretty normal Friday with the media ripping Trump for allegedly making a gold star widow cry. It was right then that he noticed another gold star widow’s decision to share a touching phone call between herself and the president. Rodgers clipped the video and sent it out for all our readers to see how Trump really talks to Gold Star widows, and a lot of them liked it.
1. CBS Legal Exec: No Sympathy For Vegas ‘Because Country Music Fans Often Are Republican’
Napoleon Bonaparte once said “Great men are meteors designed to burn so that earth may be lighted.” We can’t think of a better way to describe The DCNF’s former Will Ricciardella, who dropped by for a few months and left behind this monster post. Will’s friend sent him a screenshot of a CBS legal executive saying some pretty nasty things about the victims of the Vegas shooting when the blood was barely dry on the ground. He thought he should write about it and nearly 2 million people agreed.