Interview With Religion Writer Bob Smietana: Smietana is senior writer at Facts and Trends magazine whose work has appeared in USA Today, The Washington Post, and Christianity Today. “A religion writer is somebody who writes about religion, religious practice, religious from the ideas behind religion to the nitty‑gritty practice to the arguments over money, to the institutional politics, and then how religion affects all the different aspects of our lives. You’re telling stories. You’re not data driven, you’re story driven. The data helps reinforce the story, so you want to know how I’m associated. Say you’re going to write about a particular sect of people.”