It's the time of year when editors play the game of looking back and naming the top stories of the year. Which would you choose?
Here's The Associated Press' Top 10 list of national and international stories. And here's the Top Five as chosen by the staff of The News-Sentinel. We make the economy the No. 2 story, and the AP makes it the top story. I think I agree with AP. The AP makes the Obama inauguration the No. 2 story, and we make "Obama's tough first year in office" our No. 1 story. I like AP's ranking better, but I like our focus on his whole first year better. We have Afghanistan at No. 3, and the AP puts it at No. 6. We have the Fort Hood massacre at No. 4, while the AP has it No. 8. At No. 5, we have the Iranian protests, and the AP has swine flu. I like our higher placement of Afghanistan and Fort Hood. But since our list stopped at Five, I would have gone with swine flu instead of Iran. Perhaps Iran should have gotten more attention, but the fact is it did not.
And here's our take on the Top Five local stories -- Parkview Field opens, three fires claim 10 lives, Renaissance Square gets batted around, casino referendum gets chatter, and Bishop D'Arcy steps down. I guess I would have left out casino chatter -- it was just a lot of nothing about the mayor's gambling delusions -- and put in the economy, which was the No. 1 state story, too. Come to think of it, it should be the top local, state, national and world story for 2009.
