Connection and Disconnection.

Average number of people who tuned in to watch George W. Bush and Al Gore speak about their candidacies for U.S. president on the Fox TV network between 8 and 9 p.m. on October 27 2.9 million

Number who tuned in to watch Martin Sheen pretend to be the U.S. president on the show "The West Wing" for a comparable hour on October 25 17.0 million

In a survey of U.S. major media news reports that used think tanks as sources of information in 1998-1999, the number of those reports in which the think tanks that were cited (but usually not named in the stories) were categorized by a nonpartisan watchdog group (FAIR) as conservative or right-leaning 8,014

Number of those reports in which the think tanks cited were categorized as liberal or left-leaning 1,632

Donations (at record level) to George W. Bush's presidential primary campaign in 1999 over $100 million

Unpublicized donations to the top three conservative think tanks, which shaped U.S. public opinion by serving as primary sources in more than 8,000 major media stories analyzing such issues as climate change, environmental regulation, economic growth, and military spending, during the year preceding the Bush campaign over $129 million

In a survey of 8,000 Florida high school students in 1978-79 (the teens of the...