Intelligent Design, Newspapers and TV

Found an interesting Q/A from an interview with a journalist covering the Dover School Board Intelligent Design case in the US.


Has any one of these factors in particular—politics, religion, age—been an indicator for which side of the case Dover residents come down on?


Interestingly, the division didn’t conform neatly to any of these lines. One consistent division I noticed, and that I wrote about, was between people who read and trusted the very good local newspapers (nearby York has two, which is pretty unusual for a small American city these days) and those who just didn’t trust them. The plaintiffs were the newspaper readers; the pro-intelligent-design school-board people were the newspaper rejecters.

Sounds like another manifestation of the effect that was found in 2003 that those who relied on Fox News had incorrect perceptions on events surrounding the war in Iraq (PDF, see page 14), such as whether WMD’s were found in Iraq after the war.