Tim Townsend of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch responds to the Religion Newswriters Association’s dull list of top ten list of 2008 religion stories with a smarter list of local Missouri stories he expects to be covering. It’s too heavy on leadership issues for our tastes, but it’s the right approach: All religion is local. Consider, for instance, how the RNA’s list might have played out had the stories been contextualized (to be fair, most local religion reporters attempt to do this; it’s the national media that flubs it): the non-news at the top of the list, the existence of Jeremiah Wright, could have been turned into an examination of generational shifts in politically-engaged African-American churches. (Obama briefly redirected the press along these lines, before reporters snapped back to scandal mode.) Number five on the list, “In his first U.S. visit, Pope Benedict XVI brings a message of hope,” might actually mean something. (Or maybe not: a pope promoting hope isn’t news.) It’s worth noting, too, that although religion reporters often complain that the rest of the press is too temporally-inclined, the top 10 they voted for isn’t much more than an echo of the news covered by political reporters.