By Ivan Lajara, The Daily Freeman

Every so often, when there is a slow news day, newspeople panic because they’re trying to figure out what to cover. (It’s not like there’s an economic crisis or anything, after all.)

This important process is done by the editor by canvassing the area and sources for news stories. This is also known as playing “Solitaire.”

Once that process is completed by getting bored, the editor figures out that the best way to pretend to do one’s job is to write a completely useless, time-wasting article and passing it off as an important news story.

The writing devices used to accomplish this are invariable and, as a service to the community, we’ve piled up the usual suspects so that the next time you run into one of these aberrations, you can properly ignore it and/or post it in your Facebook wall.

So, without further ado, here are The Top 10 News Stories That Actually Are Not News Stories:

1. Articles that tell you there’s a new study that shows you the food you’ve been eating all your life will kill you. Bonus points go to television programs that have ads earlier in the day saying something like “there’s something in your fridge that might endanger your life right now. Details at 10 p.m.” These articles are usually rewrites of other’s people studies in which the conclusion shows that eggs are bad. You are doomed.

2. Articles that tell you that a new study shows that the last study was wrong. Eggs are good again. They’ll be bad next month.

3. Anything with cute kittens or babies or sexy ladies. Serious news organization know that cats, babies and sexy ladies are important news beats that can’t be ignored. Although media have yet to figure out how to create sections devoted to sexy ladies shooting guns while holding babies and kittens, there has been much progress. The New York Times, for instance, has a science section online completely devoted to cats. That’s right, all the news that’s fit to purr.

4. Trend stories. News organizations like to keep up with the times, which is why they’re always on the lookout for what people are doing, like popular activities such as not reading newspapers. This is why media companies keep up with the pulse of their communities by writing important stories about disturbing activities like teenagers hugging, people falling asleep on the subway and people wanting lots of Christmas presents. All these examples, we should note, actually have been investigated by the New York Times.

5. Investigations that are not investigations. News budgets are tight, and organizations lucky enough to have investigative teams have to carefully choose the subjects they cover. This is why an NBC affiliate in Rhode Island prioritized their investigations to cover what really matters. Here’s a real quote: “There’s a new drinking game that’s raising eyebrows with law enforcement. NBC 10’s I-Team hidden camera revealed a potentially dangerous drinking game called beer pong.” Welcome to the 1960s.

6. Articles based on the current popular movie or television shows. Riding the popularity of a movie and writing an article about a topic is the parasite of news stories. However, there are times when this is necessary. For instance, on a recent Fox Business channel segment, under the banner, “Are Liberals Trying To Brainwash Your Kids Against Capitalism?” the host and guest discussed the dangers posed to America by the socialist movie “The Muppets.”

7. Articles about anything being the cool new thing. This is worse when the new thing is not new. A Google search shows that there are currently 3,040 new news articles about “Angry Birds,” the popular breakout game sensation. Of 2009. Unfortunately, companies know that you only have to put a “2.0” next to your old product and it becomes new.

8. Anniversary stories. These stories usually contain a variation of this sentence, “Where were you when (insert news story) happened?” As years go by, the sentence turns into, ““Where were you when the 50th anniversary of (insert news story) happened?”

9. Reaction stories. These news stories will inform you that people have feelings about things that happen. The worse part is that we’re total suckers for “how do you feel” stories, unless that question is asked of a guy who just got run over by a car.

10. Listicles. Any article that contains “The Top 10” of anything is pure garba...oh, shucks!

Ivan Lajara is Life section editor of the Daily Freeman in Kingston, N.Y. He can be reached by calling (845) 331-5000, ext. 502, and by email at ilajara@freemanonline.com. Read his blog at dailyfreeman.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ivanlajara and ‘like’ him on Facebook at http://on.fb.me/ivanlajara.

Camp Bow Wow, a doggy daycare and overnight camp based in Colorado, has compiled a list of the Top 10 Breaking Animal News Stories of 2011. From a blind Great Dane Lily and her trusted companion and guide dog, Maddison, to the story of Jack the Cat who started a social media revolution, this past year has been filled with standout animals.

1. Humane Society Rescues 1,673 Puppy Mill Dogs in 2011
This past year, The Animal Rescue Team of the Humane Society has saved 1,673 dogs from horrific puppy mills.

2. Fallen Soldier’s Family Brings Dog They Named “Hero” Home from Iraq
“I felt that if I could hold one of the puppies that he had held, it would bring bring a little bit of him back to me,” she said. Carey Neesley understands that. The social worker in Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich., went to herculean lengths to get her brother’s two pet dogs out of Iraq after he died in December 2008. He had saved the stray Labrador and her pup from Baghdad’s mean streets, where dogs are unloved and short-lived.

3. Blind Great Dane Lily in Need of a Home with Space for Her Huge Guide Dog, Maddison
When illness forced vets to remove Great Dane Lily’s eyes, the prospects of a fulfilling life didn’t look good. But then no one had reckoned on her pal Maddison stepping in to turn guide dog. The pair have been inseparable for years but now find themselves looking for a new home because their owner could no longer cope. The catch for anyone interested is that the Great Danes come as a package. They have been waiting at the Dogs Trust re-homing centre in Shrewsbury since July.

4. Jack the Cat is Missing at JFK and a Virtual World is Watching
Ms. Pascoe’s nightmare has turned into something of one for American Airlines, as pet lovers and sympathizers have seized upon Jack’s cause. As Jack remains at large, the wall on the American Airlines Facebook page has been besieged by impassioned pleas for the airline to do more to find him, and provide more frequent updates to those around the country who are anxiously awaiting word of Jack’s whereabouts.

5. Cat Found 5 Years , 1,800 Miles and One Microchip Later
Willow disappeared from her home in Boulder, Colo., five years ago. Her owners thought she had been killed by coyotes and had moved on. And Willow, apparently, just moved. She turned up this week in Manhattan, 1,800 miles from where she was last seen. A microchip implanted when she was a kitten helped track down her owners, according to The Associated Press.

6. Banned by Many Airlines, These Bulldogs Fly Private
When Louie York flew cross country on Sept. 15, his route from New York was anything but direct. First came a stop in Chicago and then one in Omaha, where he endured a six-hour layover. Next were Denver, Phoenix and, finally, Los Angeles, 18 hours later. The capper: a seven-hour drive home to the San Francisco Bay Area. Such is life for travelers like Louie, a French bulldog whose breed has been banned from most commercial airlines — not for the dogs’ bark or bite, but because so many have died in flight.

7. Police Kill Dozens of Animals Freed from Ohio Preserve
Both the woman and the operator seemed surprisingly calm considering that it was not merely a bear and a lion but 56 exotic creatures — a fierce menagerie that included wolves, monkeys and 18 Bengal tigers, an endangered species whose numbers total less than 3,000 in the wild — that had fled their cages on a 73-acre private reserve. Friends described the couple who ran it as animal lovers, but they also had a history of run-ins with the authorities.

8. A New Level of Fraud: Pets Are Getting Killed for the Insurance Money
Insurance fraud has reached a new low in the U.K., where authorities have discovered a rise in claims on pet insurance policies. According to the Association of British Insurers, last year £1,929,900 ($3 million) was collected in pet insurance compared to £420,000 ($667, 842) in 2009, the Telegraph reports. In 2010, 2.3 million cats and dogs were insured, and since almost any type of animal can be insured, experts are bracing for an even bigger influx in dishonest claims.

9. Mating Turtles Shut Down Runway at JFK
Love is in the air at John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. More than 150 turtles crossed over an active runway and disrupted air traffic on Wednesday so that they could continue their mating season. The diamondback terrapins were trying to get to an ideal location to lay their eggs. That's a sandy area that happens to be across Runway 4, according to Carol Bannerman of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The turtles were primarily female, and the fertilization of their eggs occurs in the water, she said.

10. Tsunami Dog Found After 3 Weeks at Sea Near Japan
In the tragic aftermath of Japan's disaster, this heart-warming story surfaces. A full 3 weeks after a devasting earthquake and resulting tsunami hit Japan, coast guards spotted a dog on a floating roof a little over a mile and a half out to sea. The canine had been washed out to sea, floating on the island of debris off the coast of Kesennuma in northern Japan, according to the Telegraph.