After two long years of the COVID-19 pandemic, life finally returned to something like normal in 2022. But as reflected in Intelligencer’s list of the year’s most-read stories, measured by audience-engagement time, there were still plenty of surprising twists and spectacular falls. Readers gravitated to stories that took them inside the year’s cascade of money meltdowns, like those at the hedge funds Tiger Global and Three Arrows Capital. They also came to Intelligencer for in-depth political coverage, including a profile of key midterms candidate (and now Senator-elect) John Fetterman, reporting on Donald Trump’s decision to run in 2024, and a look at Democrats’ questions about whether Joe Biden should do the same.
This is just a small sample of the work New York produces every day both in print and across its six digital sites: Intelligencer, the Cut, Vulture, Grub Street, The Strategist, and Curbed. For more of New York’s indispensable coverage, be sure to sign up for One Great Story, our daily recommendation newsletter, and to subscribe.
20.
Galaxy Brain
By Molly Fischer
How the impeccably credentialed, improbably charming economic historian Adam Tooze supplanted the dirtbag left. Read the story ➼
19.
Collision Course
By Lauren Smiley
The car wrecks were staged. The injuries were real. Led by a charismatic rogue, one family bloodied itself to pocket $6 million. Read the story ➼
18.
The Vulnerability of John Fetterman
By Rebecca Traister
Inside this year’s highest-stakes Senate race. Read the story ➼
17.
Masters of the Bubbleverse
By Michelle Celarier
Secretive hedge fund Tiger Global changed the rules on tech investing. Then it all went bad. Read the story ➼
16.
Why Ivana Trump Was Buried at Bedminster Golf Course: 3 Theories
By Margaret Hartmann
With his ex-wife’s burial in a simple grave, Trump’s weird 15-year dream of turning his New Jersey property into a cemetery has come true. Read the story ➼
15.
A Handgun for Christmas
By Lisa Miller
Will a jury find James and Jennifer Crumbley criminally responsible for their son’s mass shooting? Read the story ➼
14.
Why Did Keisha Lance Bottoms Quit?
By Zak Cheney-Rice
The mayor of Atlanta was a rising star in Democratic politics. Then the crime wave hit. Read the story ➼
13.
She Was WWE’s First Female Referee. She Says Vince McMahon Raped Her.
By Abraham Josephine Riesman
Rita Chatterton does not want to be forgotten. Read the story ➼
12.
There Has to Be a Backup Plan. There’s a Backup Plan, Right?
By Gabriel Debenedetti
Inside the 2024 soul-searching that’s happening in every corner of the Democratic Party. Read the story ➼
11.
Seed Money
By Ken Silverstein
How one billionaire with a savior complex and a voracious sexual appetite got conned by his best friend, who saw him as the perfect mark. Read the story ➼
10.
Why Isn’t Brittney Griner the Biggest Sports Story in the Country?
By Will Leitch
One of the WNBA’s premier players has been detained in Russia for weeks, yet the reaction has been curiously muted. Read the story ➼
9.
The Return of the Urban Firestorm
By David Wallace-Wells
What happened in Colorado was something much scarier than a wildfire. Read the story ➼
8.
13,000 Pounds at 118 Miles Per Hour
By Ben Ryder Howe
It was the deadliest wreck in years. And the man behind it was one of the FBI’s most notorious informants. Read the story ➼
7.
Donald Trump on 2024: ‘I’ve Already Made That Decision’
By Olivia Nuzzi
The only question left in the former president’s mind is when he’ll announce. Read the story ➼
6.
Why America’s Railroads Refuse to Give Their Workers Paid Leave
By Eric Levitz
Wall Street’s new robber barons can’t make the trains run on time. Read the story ➼
5.
‘I More So Consider Myself a Con Artist Than Anything’
By Gabrielle Bluestone
What Danielle Miller learned at Horace Mann and Rikers. Read the story➼
4.
Black Lives Matter Secretly Bought a $6 Million House
By Sean Campbell
Allies and critics alike have questioned where the organization’s money has gone. Read the story ➼
3.
The Sordid Saga of Hunter Biden’s Laptop
By Andrew Rice and Olivia Nuzzi
The most invasive data breach imaginable is a political scandal Democrats can’t just wish away. Read the story ➼
2.
The Crypto Geniuses Who Vaporized a Trillion Dollars
By Jen Wieczner
Everyone trusted the two guys at Three Arrows Capital. They knew what they were doing — right? Read the story ➼
1.
The Last, Lonely Days of Ivana Trump
By Nina Burleigh
Her friends wish she’d never met the rakish young Italian they called the “snake.” Read the story ➼
