hank.walker@UNH.CS.CMU.EDU.UUCP (08/17/86)
To: DR01@te.cc.cmu.edu I think that one of the reasons that the selected newspapers and news magazines had a range of opinion as narrow as Scarlett O'Hara's waist is because the selection had a range as narrow as Scarlett O'Hara's waist. All of the articles originated in the Northeast. There was not a single quote from west of the Mississippi, despite the fact that a majority of Americans live in that region. Nothing from the West Coast, nothing from the South, or the Midwest. I would wager that in general these regions hold opinions generally more conservative than those expressed in the selected papers. Consequently the selection really covers the left half of the spectrum, and not the far right. The range of published opinion is probably the same as it used to be, just shifted to the right, as noted. -------