The Scopes trial of 1925 drew many reporters to Dayton, Tennessee, to report on what they expected would be the final blow to ignorant fundamentalism. They came with many preconceived notions about Dayton, the people of Dayton, William Jennings Bryan, and creationism. Close examination of pretrial, trial, and posttrial coverage in eight newspapers--the "New York Times,""New York American,""Chicago Tribune,""Washington Post,""Baltimore Sun,""Los Angeles Times,""Arkansas Gazette," and "Atlanta Constitution"--revealed that most reporters presupposed evolution as a scientific fact, the residents of Dayton as ignorant, and the Bible as highly errant. In reality, pro-evolution books were readily available in Dayton, while the key issue in the trial for Tennesseans was not free speech, but rather parental control over school curricula. The anti-evolution bill was seen as a way to forbid proselytizing for an as yet unproven evolutionary faith. The journalists covering the trial rarely tried to explain the complexity of the situation and the issue. The result was highly biased trial coverage that depicted Bryan as an inept prosecutor who saw himself as a type of Old Testament crusader. In general, the reporters who praised open-mindedness in their writing were themselves closed-minded when confronted with a world view opposed to their own. They incorrectly portrayed the evolution-creation debate as a battle between intelligence and stupidity and, as a result, the stereotypes they created persist today. (SRT)