The best of the Beacon in 2025

At the end of each year, we look back to see how we’ve done and identify the articles that particularly resonated with Beacon readers. Though a couple of days remain in 2025, there are some clear trends—and favorite articles for the year.

For the Beacon, 2025 has been another year of strong growth. Since Jan. 1, our website has logged more than 492,000 users, up 61 percent compared with the year before. The increase in pageviews was similarly robust: 50 percent.

In previous years, the most-read stories were typically varied, highlighting our readers’ diverse interests. This time around, a few topics dominated the analytics data.

On RochesterBeacon.com, the most-read story was “ICE raids Asian food store in Henrietta,” Contributing Writer Narm Nathan’s article on the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in July at the Asia Food Market on Brighton Henrietta Town Line Road, which resulted in multiple arrests. Narm also wrote the No. 2 story, “ICE raid disrupted by crowd of opposition,” his piece describing the September standoff after activists and community leaders arrived as ICE officers targeted roofers on a project near the George Eastman Museum. Rounding out the top three was “Breaking silence over a Pittsford school incident” by Justin O’Connor, who spoke with the parents of a former Barker Road Middle School student about school and district officials’ response to an incident in which the couple’s daughter was touched inappropriately by a lunch monitor.

Justin’s article ranked No. 1 in clicks on the Beacon’s Weekly Review email. (Unlike website pageviews, which can be driven by social media and news aggregator websites and apps, this metric most clearly reflects the Beacon’s readership base. If you are not already receiving the free Weekly Review, you can sign up here.) No. 2 was “An expulsion at Eastman” by Alex Holly, a story about a doctoral student at the Eastman School of Music who was dismissed after complaining about alleged harassment by a faculty member. In third place was “An old-school reporter with a passion for finding the truth,” the obituary that Managing Editor Smriti Jacob and I wrote after Beacon cofounder and senior writer Will Astor passed away in January.

This year, for the first time, we’ve also tracked social media engagement. On Facebook and Instagram, Narm Nathan’s story about the ICE raid in Henrietta generated the most views by far. In second place was “New sports bar brings a Puerto Rican twist to Charlotte,” Emmely Eli Texcucano’s piece about the Porto Roc Soxial Lounge on Lake Avenue, followed by Narm’s story on the standoff with ICE officers in September.

A striking fact about these most-read stories: nearly all were authored by young journalists who started writing for the Beacon as interns. Alex and Emmely, both University of Rochester students, this year were members of the Oasis Project, the Beacon’s formal internship program. Led by Smriti Jacob, the program grew from three students in 2024 to eight this summer.

Articles from community contributors also draw substantial readership. The most-read contributed article on RochesterBeacon.com this year was “UR won’t explain why an Eastman student was expelled,” a follow-up to Alex’s story that focused on the questions of due process and First Amendment rights involved in the case. It was written by Jessie Appleby and William Harris, both with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

In 2025, a new partnership brought additional investigative journalism to the Beacon. We published articles produced by the New York Times’ Local Investigations Fellowship and New York Focus, another nonprofit newsroom. An example: “‘No arrests’: In New York, some police can drink, drive and avoid charges,” a report based on information collected over the past two years through public records requests.

Readership data helps us measure the impact of Beacon stories. But numbers alone don’t capture all the ways an article can be meaningful. So, in keeping with our annual tradition, we’ve asked our principal writers to select the “best” piece they contributed to the Beacon over the last 12 months. We leave it to them to define “best”; it might be work that successfully tackled a challenging or important subject, or perhaps it just meant the most to the writer.

For Narm Nathan, his “best” piece was not one of the two that placed in the top three ranked by pageviews. Instead, it was “The sanctuary city battle,” about the legal fight between the city of Rochester and the Trump administration. Narm says this piece “represents the culmination of what I’ve always wanted to provide to the Beacon: comprehensive analysis that unites the voices and stories of our communities with the institutions and systems that govern their everyday lives.”

Fellow Contributing Writer Jacob Schermerhorn picked “A race redefined” because “it is a great example of what I think we do well at the Beacon. The story was a preview of a race for county legislator in a Republican voter dominated rural part of Monroe County, not a premise that immediately marks itself out to be a top story. However, delving deeper than anyone else in local news revealed a divided right-leaning electorate and a continuing trend of improving Democratic voter enrollment in rural districts. I took it as a personal triumph in identifying it as a ‘race to watch’ when Democrats pulled off an upset win on election night.”

“Divide remains over Fairport’s zoning code” was Contributing Writer Mike Costanza’s selection. “My work on the story,” he explains, “gave me an inside look at the issues Fairport faced, the views of the village officials who were trying to update its zoning code, and the village residents who opposed the update.”

Peter Lovenheim, our Washington correspondent, picked “When words lose their meaning.” 

He notes: “It received many comments and sparked some interesting discussion. The essay protests that many people today, like clerical workers and waitstaff, use superlatives like ‘perfect’ and ‘awesome’ to describe mundane things.” The piece asked: “In what world is simply saying your name ‘perfect’ or ordering a salad ‘awesome’?” The essay argues that we should save words like these “to describe the most wonderful aspects of life, the things that truly take our breath away.”

Since late 2024, several longtime Democrat and Chronicle reporters have become important—and popular—contributors to the Beacon. Investigative reporter Gary Craig, who has partnered with us to share articles also published on his Substack site, chose “When ‘waiver of appeal’ and ‘interest of justice’ collide.” Gary notes: “I have a perverse joy in digging through court records and finding stories that combine purely human elements with legal issues that could be of significant consequence. This case is one, and there will be more to come with it, I believe, in 2026.”

Justin Murphy’s pick: “All I’m guilty of is being an immigrant.” It told the story of Luis, who emigrated from Ecuador two decades ago, got married, started a family and built a business in Monroe County—and then one day he was pulled over by three masked ICE agents, and his life here was turned upside down. “When a national policy becomes as controversial as the Trump deportation policy has,” Justin says, “it’s all the more important to be able to localize and put a face on it. I was glad to be able to do so with Luis’ story.”

Will Cleveland covers the beer scene for us with articles shared from his Substack site, Cleveland Prost. He chose “Ellyn Gooch’s unlikely road to becoming Rochester’s ‘best brewer.’” “This profile of Ellyn Gooch might not be the most polished piece I published this year,” Will observes, “but it’s easily my favorite from our partnership between the Cleveland Prost Beer Newsletter and the Rochester Beacon. What it lacks in stylistic perfection it makes up for in heart, capturing why I fell in love with craft beer communities in the first place. Ellyn’s journey to becoming Rochester’s favorite brewer reflects the authenticity, openness, and sense of belonging that define the best parts of craft beer. More than a career story, it highlights the importance of welcoming and elevating people from all backgrounds, reminding us that diversity doesn’t just strengthen beer, it strengthens the community around it.”

Emmely Eli Texcucano’s favorite piece was “Bringing memories back to the 19th Ward community,” about Samaria Turner, daughter of the late photographer Bob Burris, who returns weekly to the Westside Farmers Market with images taken by her father. Says Emmely: “This article represented what I love about community-driven stories and profiles. It’s about being entrusted with someone’s story and capturing them on paper. Even if for just a brief moment, Samaria gave me the privilege to learn about her world and the impact her father had in the 19th Ward.”

For Smriti Jacob, picking only one story proved impossible. (As managing editor and the indispensable member of our team, she gets a pass!) Smriti writes: “Those who know me well know that the best part of the Beacon for me is working with our young writers. This year gave me many such opportunities—brainstorming and writing with Justin O’Connor on the immigration crackdown, and with Jacob Schermerhorn and Narm Nathan on NIH funding cuts and protests on campus—that will go into my memory book. Personally, conversations with Seanelle Hawkins and Miguel Melèndez deepened my understanding of what this work asks of us and why it matters.”

Smriti and I worked together on my own pick, the tribute to Will Astor. Over the many years we worked with him, first at the Rochester Business Journal and then at the Beacon, Will wrote countless deeply researched and insightful articles, particularly in his coverage of health care and legal affairs. Readers mourned his passing. For us at the Beacon, the loss has been felt throughout the year—we miss his writing, of course, but also his friendship, his sharp sense of humor and his faith in the Beacon’s nonprofit mission.

On behalf of all of us, thanks for reading the Beacon in 2025. And all the best in the new year!

Paul Ericson is Rochester Beacon executive editor.

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