Obviously, the large part we’ve played in driving and reporting on the health care debate, the dominant story of the latter half of the year, gives FDL a big leg up in any annual overview of the best of online reporting, but the other three stories on Sargent’s top five list were also, for lack of a better word, “ours.”

Here you can see the horrible choices facing someone who came for the Little Rock health fair: do I see a doctor about the Stage-Three cancer diagnosis I got seven years ago that bankrupted me, or do I try to see a dentist about the immediate and agonizing pain from this abscessed tooth?

Arkansans who speak with our Eve at the Little Rock health fair today are embarrassed that they can’t afford to go to the dentist or the doctor. They seem almost ashamed that they don’t have the finances to pay for health insurance.

Eve Gittelson is in Little Rock covering the event today.