The 15 Most Popular Beyond Bylines Posts of 2022

As 2022 draws to a close, we’re looking back at some of your favorite posts from the year. We published nearly 200 posts in 2022, and the most popular ones cover a range of topics.

Several of the top posts provide tips for writers looking to boost their skills, whether it be in SEO, identifying misinformation, coding, or creative writing.

Other top posts helped readers plan their coverage, learn about the latest AP Style updates, refresh their writing portfolio, and find the perfect gift for a journalist or blogger.

Here’s what you read this year.

1. 2022 Sports Calendar: Plan Your Coverage and Know What to Look For

A popular post each year, our sports calendar helps journalists not only plan their sports coverage, but it also highlights some of the big developing stories to look out for with each event. And as this year was bookended by two huge sporting events, the Winter Olympics and the World Cup, this post stayed popular all year long.

Stay tuned for our 2023 sports calendar, which will be published in just a few weeks!

2. 4 Investigative Journalism Podcasts That Will Keep You Riveted

We love journalists at Cision – the entire Beyond Bylines blog is dedicated to them after all! In the past, we’ve recognized journalists who cover a variety of topics and come from a variety of backgrounds. In this post, we decided to shine a spotlight on several standout investigative journalism podcasts and the journalists that “research deeply and scratch beyond the epidermis of the story, are integral to the collective understanding of the world in which we all reside.”

The podcasts in this list cover a range of fascinating stories, including the rise and fall of Theranos and its founder, Elizabeth Holmes, and the effects of race on the largest school system in the country.

3. AP Style Rules for Writing About the Royal Family, Inflation, and More

Our quarterly AP Style roundups are always among our most-read posts of the year. This one in particular included rules and reminders related to some of the most talked-about news stories of the year, including the death of Queen Elizabeth II, inflation, and abortion.

Curious how to refer to King Charles III’s wife, Camilla? Read the post to find out.

4. 6 Bad Writing Habits to Ditch in 2022

It’s easy to get comfortable in the content creation process but doing so makes it easy to overlook some of our bad writing habits. So at the beginning of 2022, we shared this list of bad writing practices to remove from your routine.

In addition to identifying the bad habit – like disorganization or using too much jargon, for example – we also provided ways to fix it.

5. Craving Food News? These 9 Sites Will Hit the Spot.

What can we say? Readers love food news. Food-related news stories are common among the week’s most-read from PR Newswire and regularly show up in our weekly press release roundups. So it came as no surprise when this list of news sites producing outstanding food coverage was one of our most popular posts of the year.

More than ever, food headlines are intersecting with the environment, technology, and economics. Keeping up with news about the things we consume goes beyond recalls and recipes – it’s about science, culture, and business. These food news sites are a must-read.

6. How to Spot a Fake Photo or Video Online

The war in Ukraine gave us reason to revisit this post, originally published in 2018. The events even led U.S. officials to warn the public about “false flag” images and videos that Russia could potentially disseminate.

The post reviews the importance of knowing how to discern real from fake, questions to ask when trying to make a decision about the legitimacy of an image or video, and tools to help you reach a conclusion.

7. Our 2022 Gift Guide for Journalists & Bloggers

Our annual gift guide is always a popular post, and our 2022 list of ideas was no different. This year, we acknowledged that one pen or notebook may not suit everyone, so we provided fun, fancy, and functional options for our gift ideas. This year’s gift guide provides a fresh mix of ideas to treat that special someone with the gift they’ve earned.

8. What to Include in Your Writing Portfolio (and What to Toss)

As the Great Resignation continued and media layoffs dominated industry headlines this year, our team thought it an ideal time to help writers revisit and refresh their writing portfolios to help them catch a potential employer’s eye. The post discusses items to keep or add to your portfolio – think images, a bio, etc. – as well as things that can be removed, like broken links and non-mobile-friendly posts.

No time to read the full post? Check out the infographic instead.

9. 5 Tips for Managing Social Media Burnout

Findings from this year’s State of the Media Report from Cision indicated that not only are journalists being asked to produce more work with fewer resources, but they are also using social media regularly to promote their stories, source information, network, and more. With all this on their shoulders, they’re bound to experience some social media burnout.

This post offers tips to help journalists find a balance between staying abreast of the latest news, engaging with their audience, and getting everything else done.

10. Coding for Journalists: Why It’s Useful & Where to Start

It’s difficult to think of a news story anymore that doesn’t include some form of data, whether it’s crime trends, damages from extreme weather events, or polling numbers, for example. And as many journalists didn’t learn about data visualization and coding in school, many of them are self-taught.

This post digs into why a working knowledge of coding can be beneficial to journalists, which coding language you should learn, and the resources to help you get started.

11. 32 Writing Prompts to Reignite Your Love for Writing

At the beginning of a new year, it can be difficult to get into the groove of a new editorial calendar and come up with new topics for your posts. To help, this list offers a variety of writing prompts to spark creativity and get the words flowing. From how-tos to listicles, scary stories, and haikus, this list is bound to have something that will pique a writer’s interest.

12. Self-Care Blogs Deserving of Your Love (and Follows)

Published around Valentine’s Day, this blog roundup focused on blogs that helped readers direct their love inward. Self-care comes in several forms, including emotional, physical, financial, and more. These self-care blogs are full of tips and advice for making yourself a priority.

13. AP Style: Rules for Writing About Ukraine, Russia & More

Shortly after the Ukraine-Russia war began, we published this AP Style roundup with helpful reminders for writers, including the correct spelling of the Ukrainian President’s name and several key locations across the country.

Other reminders in this roundup covered terminology for weather, electric vehicles, and more.

14. 4 Things Journalists Want PR Pros to Know About How They Work

The 2022 Cision State of the Media Report surveyed nearly 4,000 journalists worldwide. We asked about the content journalists want to receive from PR pros, their pet peeves, and their workloads.

Nearly one in five (18%) respondents said their relationships with PR pros had grown more valuable over the last year, but there’s still plenty of work to be done by PR pros to help make journalists’ jobs easier. This recap covers a few of the major takeaways from the 2022 report.

15. SEO for Bloggers: A Beginner’s Guide to Meta Tags

A lack of attention paid to SEO was one of the bad habits mentioned in post #4 above. Technical SEO, including the understanding and use of meta tags, should be taken into account before publishing any new post.

To help bloggers gain a basic understanding of meta tags, this post discusses what they are, why they’re important, and tips for optimizing them in your own content.

See you next year!

The Beyond Bylines team wishes you and yours a wonderful holiday season. We’ll be back in 2023 with new posts covering media news, standout blogs, writing tips, and more!

Don’t miss out on our posts in the new year. Subscribe to Beyond Bylines to get new posts sent right to your inbox.