James Loving - National Radio Text Service

 

This month has been the greatest change on the NR charts in our history and there are three stories that jumped up on the radar screen as being surprise movers. - Famed journalist/author Elizabeth Becker charged up the charts to reign in the number one position - In the favorite sections category the most surprising change is NBA MAX which are NBA stories we did that were published in the French language for MAXI BASKET magazine

 

Sunday May 16, 2010

MOST NR TOP 10 CHANGES OF ALL-TIME

In the world of go figure this months NR Top 10 certainly qualifies. In one of our fastest ever rising stories our Phnom Penh column on famed journalist/author Elizabeth Becker charged up the charts to reign in the number one position. Our charts were tabulated May 14th and Becker's story was published April 25th. It raises the question so what's the deal with the interest in Becker?

The piece actually is about Becker's new book release Bophana about a 25 year-old old Khmer girl who was in love. She and her boyfriend were murdered by the Khmer Rouge in part given their intellectual status.

The second spot was captured FORMER UCLA COACH JOHN WOODEN CELEBRATES 99th BIRTHDAY. Though we are not into hero worship Wooden is a person worthy of the honor. After my first year covering sports I was interviewed by a radio sports talk show host who was my favorite interview. My reply was MLB (Major League Baseball) great Nolan Ryan who was fresh in my mind since I had interviewed him a week prior to my being a guest on this radio show after Ryan had thrown a record 6th no-hitter at the age of 43.

Afterward upon reflecting on my statement I realized that in reality that my all time favorite interview up to that time was John Wooden a man who is a legend in his own time. He is a man who has set records that may never be broken. He also is a great human being and teacher not only in basketball but moral values and common sense. Twenty years on Wooden remains as my favorite interview of all time not only for who he is but how gracious he was and the abundant amount of time he gave me for our meeting that resulted in numerous radio and print stories.

The number three spot on our NR To 10 was taken by Dr. Beat Richner who along with our Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Jim Murray ranked number one on our Top 10 charts longer then any other NR story. There has been a continued interest in his tale as evidenced by his resurgence to return to the charts once again.

This month has been the greatest change on the NR charts in our history and there are three stories that jumped up on the radar screen as being surprise movers.

Relative to the current problems in Thailand where Thai civilians, foreigners and journalists are being killed in their civil disturbance our story about the harassment of the Thai Police is an old story from February 2001 jumped up again to be ranked fifth. Of note this was the beginning of the Thaksin Shinawatra era. Obviously in large part the interest in this story most likely stems from being generated by search engines doing their job when people a searching for Thai violence news. The sad part of it all is that we have been warning the public for years about the Thai mentality and two faced attitudes. This is not the Thailand that many of us have fallen in love with prior to their adopting Democracy in the mid 90's.

The misplaced American Idol hysteria has sparked interest in out BIZ WHO IS story regarding AI's creator Simon Fuller. That interest also translated in the BIZ WHO IS section being ranked number one in the sections most visited.

Last but not least is our story about the mysterious concert that was to have taken place in Phnom Penh during the middle of the Khmer New Year when everyone flees town. It featured Philippine talent including Laarni LoSala who was a major hit with the stories we published on her horrendous mistreatment on a Filipino reality TV show. TV viewers recognized her true talent and voted her the winner but she suffered a lot of mental pain in the process.

The concert that had KFC and San Miguel Beer as sponsors was to occur April 15th. It never happened.

In tribute to the NBA playoffs we're dusting off some moldy oldie stories for the Archives features of the month which include NBA Trivia and NBA or Bust.

In the favorite sections category the most surprising change is the return of the Phnom Penh section as well as NBA MAX which are NBA stories we did that were published in the French language for MAXI BASKET magazine.

Dennis Rodman has returned to rank a surprising eighth position in sections most visited. It is a compilation of vintage stories about the former NBA star turned actor .

Till next month when we'll see if what has gone around might come around again.

 

The Top 10 most visited sections are:

 

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