CNN’s top 100 digital stories of 2019
What a news year 2019 was. The team at CNN Digital looked back on the stories that resonated most in this frenetic news year. We always want to know what you, our audience, is most interested in. We find this list both reflective and informative about the work we do and the people we do it for.
The list not only speaks to a nonstop news cycle, but to the diverse interests and intellectual curiosity of millions of people who came to CNN’s digital platforms this year.
When news breaks, people turn to CNN. Natural disasters. Horrific mass shootings. People we lost. Riveting US political news and analysis. Those kinds of stories are definitely on this list.
But so are stories about business strategies, inspiring people, wild medical tales, unique travel pieces and “zeitgeist” stories about the culture and time we live in.
As we enter an election year, we will keep up the critical work of covering the campaigns and the political climate in the US, and continue to report on an array of important and interesting stories around the world.
CNN Digital saw its biggest audiences so far in 2019, with a monthly average of more than 162 million people coming to read and watch our brand of essential and engaging journalism. We thank each and every one of you, and we promise to keep going.
–Meredith Artley, Editor in Chief, CNN Digital Worldwide
1. Live Story: Fire at Notre Dame Cathedral
2. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian slams into the Bahamas
3. Live Story: Dozens killed in Christchurch mosque shooting
4. Live Story: President Trump has been impeached
5. Live Story: Deadly shooting in El Paso, Texas
6. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian threatens the US
7. It’s only $4.99. But Costco’s rotisserie chicken comes at a huge price
8. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian intensifies as it heads for US
9. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian threatens the US after devastating the Bahamas
10. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian heads for the US mainland
12. Police sources: New evidence suggests Jussie Smollett orchestrated attack
13. Live Story: Three key witnesses testify in impeachment inquiry
14. Opinion: Mueller’s report looks bad for Obama
15. Live Story: The government is STILL shut down
16. Live Story: Mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio
17. Live Story: House launches Trump impeachment inquiry
18. Live Story: Michael Cohen testifies before Congress
19. Cameron Boyce, Disney star, dies at 20 after a seizure, family says
20. Live Story: The government shutdown is over
21. 20 people killed in El Paso shooting, Texas governor says
22. A shocking image of a drowned man and his daughter underscores the crisis at the US-Mexico border
23. A mother’s warning: If you have white teen sons, listen up …
24. At least 12 dead after disgruntled employee opens fire at Virginia Beach municipal center
25. Analysis: Nancy Pelosi just pulled a major power move on Donald Trump’s State of the Union
26. Live Story: Deadly school shooting in Santa Clarita
27. How a cheap, brutally efficient grocery chain is upending America’s supermarkets
28. She lived for 99 years with organs in all the wrong places and never knew it
29. Live Story: Robert Mueller testifies
30. Which drink is best for hydration? Hint: It isn’t water
31. Live Story: The Mueller report is out
33. Marcia Cross says her anal cancer is linked to HPV and husband’s throat cancer
34. Commonly prescribed drugs are tied to nearly 50% higher dementia risk in older adults, study says
35. Live Story: Sri Lanka attack death toll rises to 290
36. This college dropout was bedridden for 11 years. Then he invented a surgery and cured himself
37. Live Story: This is the longest shutdown in US history
39. Live Story: Trump declares national emergency to fund the wall
40. Read Trump’s phone conversation with Volodymyr Zelensky
41. Exclusive: White House preparing draft national emergency order, has identified $7 billion for wall
43. Analysis: The greatest trick Donald Trump ever pulled
44. Keanu Reeves not touching women is a thing
46. Live Story: The 2019 Oscars
47. Explosive revelations in Russia saga add up to a bad day for Trump
48. Dollar stores are everywhere. That’s a problem for poor Americans
49. Nine-year-old child genius to graduate university
50. Earthquakes put Ridgecrest residents on edge: ‘Nobody in this town has slept for days’
51. Live Story: Hurricane Dorian nears Puerto Rico
52. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez responds to dance video critics with more dancing
54. Emily Hartridge, popular YouTube personality, dies at 35
55. Analysis: Why Shep Smith finally walked out of Fox News for good
57. Live Story: Whistleblower alleges White House coverup
58. Teenage boy goes blind after existing on Pringles, white bread and french fries
59. Grocery store employee missing for 10 years found behind store’s cooler
60. Live Story: Impeachment inquiry hearing with former US Ambassador to Ukraine
61. Passengers stuck on United flight in frigid cold for more than 14 hours
62. Teen dies of tapeworm larvae infestation in the brain
63. Exclusive: Top US Navy SEAL tells commanders in letter: ‘We have a problem’
64. Former Trump Organization executive says she expects President Trump will resign
65. Two people just got the plague in China — yes, the Black Death plague
66. Edward Snowden searched the CIA’s networks for proof that aliens exist. Here’s what he found
67. Live Story: Bombs tear through Sri Lankan churches and hotels, killing 250 people
68. Abigail Disney visited Disneyland. She is ‘livid’ about what she saw
69. Live Story: At least 3 dead in California garlic festival shooting
70. Beth Chapman, ‘Dog the Bounty Hunter’ star, has died
71. YouTuber James Charles has lost nearly 3 million subscribers since his feud with Tati Westbrook
72. A huge, strange-looking fish washed up on a California beach. Scientists say it’s a first
73. 49 killed in mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand
74. Analysis: A grave charge and a momentous turn in the Trump impeachment inquiry
75. He was a Yale graduate, Wall Street banker and entrepreneur. Today he’s homeless in Los Angeles
78. Alec Baldwin suggests Trump’s latest attack on ‘SNL’ could be ‘a threat to my safety’
79. Analysis: The hugely inappropriate weekend of Ivanka Trump and Donald Trump Jr.
80. Her son died. And then anti-vaxers attacked her
81. New York meteorologist fired after using racial slur on air
82. Live Story: The latest on the Trump impeachment inquiry
83. Growing divide between Trump and McConnell over impeachment trial
84. Dayton shooter had an obsession with violence and mass shootings, police say
85. A nurse is accused of impregnating a woman in a vegetative state who later gave birth
86. ‘Bomb cyclone’ blasts Colorado and leaves hundreds stranded in cars
88. Analysis: Donald Trump falls for Nancy Pelosi’s trap
89. US intercepts Russian bombers, fighter jets off the coast of Alaska
90. Fatima Ali, ‘Top Chef’ fan favorite, dies at 29
91. Cops say a would-be kidnapper chased a woman — into a karate studio. That was a bad move.
92. Trump on Meghan Markle: ‘I didn’t know that she was nasty’
93. A ‘no-brainer Nobel Prize’: Hungarian scientists may have found a fifth force of nature
94. Delta passenger who carried firearm through TSA screening returned from Japan to US on the same day
96. Tesla reveals Cybertruck, but breaks its ‘unbreakable’ windows during unveiling
97. Laurent Simons, 9-year-old prodigy, leaves university without graduating
98. Luke Perry, star of ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ and ‘Riverdale,’ dead at 52
99. Analysis: You’ll never believe what Donald Trump just said about 9/11
*For data and analytics fans: Every one of these stories got at least 2 million visits according to our internal data, with the top story about the Notre Dame fire getting more than 17 million visits.
