Don’t trust the mainstream media when it comes to assessing what’s most important to you. Journalism’s jaded jackanapes live lives of quiet isolation, lost in the fetid recesses of their unconscious desires and fetishes, projecting their own fears and prejudices onto the great news wallscreen that is the Internet.

And so, in an effort to keep you, my beloved readers, not only informed and entertained but also convinced that you need someone like me to brings stuff like this to people like you, I do hereby present the Ten Most Important Stories of 2011:

10. Champion Feed & Supply relocates to 1115 Industrial Road in Kearny. Kearny!

9. Despite chatter to the contrary, PV’s FCCLA attends conference. Wackiness ensues.

8. Spirited city council meeting covers wide range of issues.

7. Mystery object found in Ely, Minnesota, putting the lie to the hateful canard that nothing interesting ever happens in Ely.

6. The Mattawa Shell station in Mattawa, Washington, now offers “Oriental” food and an inside-seating Laundromat to its Occidental customers. Get that lo mein stain out of your khakis while you fill up.

5. Basin Republican Rambler scoops AP on Basin Library Children’s Time candy-treat dispersal.

4. Crocketts Bluff residents “question” post office closure. Will FedEx be next?

3. Kayla Kisner will vie for Distinguished Young Woman title of 2012, ending rumors that she would sit this year out.

2. The Grand Saline Sun opens up can of worms with great PB&J controversy.

And the No. 1 story of 2011:

1. Utility shed measuring 8′x8′x8′ will, repeat, will benefit the Canistota Fire Department.

To those who would argue that these small-town stories cannot possibly compete with the execution of Osama bin Laden, the death of Steve Jobs, the end of the Iraq war, or the cancellation of Bored to Death, I say there are no small towns or small stories…only small fonts.

After all, what affected your day-to-day existence more: the death of Apple’s  founder or your kid’s prom?