I happened to be reading this article in the Houston Chronicle about a gay male flight attendant murdered by a homophobe, and discovered something interesting while scrolling through the reader comments on the article.
Houston Chronicle readers seem to be more articulate and logical (and better writers) than the typical reader of the Indianapolis Star. It was really surprising to read comments from conservative, religious people that are not only grammatically correct but scathing in their view about what the homophobe did and where he’ll end up in the afterlife. After reading the Indianapolis Star reader comments for so long, I had a totally different expectation.
Either the Chronicle heavily moderates their comment section and edits comments from readers, or they just have a better educated populace than Indianapolis does.
I’d have to hunt around to find a really good example, but this one will do for starters. If you’ve never read the readers comments at the Indy Star, hang out and do that one day. Either a disproportionate number of Indianapolis citizens can’t think coherently – let alone write well – or there are just a bunch of nutters who do nothing but comment on the Star all day.