Out of the thousands of articles published this year in the Whidbey News-Times, the Top Two stories read most online were fake.

Two stories from our April Fools special fake front page combined had roughly 100,000 page views.

A story announcing the state had decided to set up tolls on the Deception Pass Bridge logged more than 65,000 pageviews. From that same section, a story about “Top Gun 2” being filmed at Naval Air Station Whidbey logged more than 30,000 pageviews.

But that is just a drop in the bucket of the newspaper’s online reach this year.

In 2017, whidbeynews times.com logged 1.3 million users and more than 3.6 million pageviews.

Readers were clicking on stories about accidents, celebrities and crime most of all.

With more than 16,000 pageviews, a story about a man driving his vehicle into Cornet Bay and then committing suicide came in as the third most-read story of the year.

Fourth was musician Macklemore getting into a summer car accident in South Whidbey.

The fifth most-read story with 14,000 pageviews was coverage of when the iconic Smith Barn in Ebey’s Prairie burned to the ground.

The death of Oak Harbor businessman Gary Wallin, who spent 50 years working and volunteering in the community, was the seventh most-read story with more than 10,000 online views.

Rounding out the list were three accident and crime stories including a Coupeville man accused of killing a dog with a pickaxe, a police chase ending in a crash and two people killed in a head-on collision.