Islamic State dominated news coverage for a big portion of 2015, making it the No. 1 story of the year as voted on by editors and news directors at the Associated Press.
The terror sparked by ISIS garnered 37 of 100 ballots cast; the runner-up story was the Supreme Court’s historic ruling legalizing gay marriage, which drew 13 first-place votes.
The No. 3 story also revolved around ISIS — the deadly terror attacks in Paris that killed 131 people on Nov. 13. That story shook up the presidential campaign, shifting both party’s subsequent debates to a focus on terrorism and candidates’ plans to defeat ISIS.
No. 4 was America’s mass shooting epidemic: “Throughout the year, mass shootings brought grief to communities across the U.S. and deepened frustration over the failure to curtail them,” the Associated Press wrote, listing shootings in San Bernardino, California; Charleston, South Carolina; Roseburg, Oregon; Chattanooga, Tennessee and at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado.
Rounding out the top 5 was the tension and shootings between police and African Americans, which spawned the #BlackLivesMatter movement.
Overall concern over terrorism ranked sixth; the 2016 presidential campaign followed at No. 7; the growing risk of climate change was eighth; the South Carolina church massacre finished at No. 9 and Europe’s migrant crisis ranked tenth.