"The Most Influential Evangelist You've Never Heard of" is the headline NPR chooses to put on its story about conservative historian David Barton.
The headline discloses some interesting assumptions that NPR makes about its own readership. First, it assumes that NPR Web site viewers must not read the New York Times, which ran a front-page news article about Mr. Barton on May 4, 2011. People who read the front page of the New York Times would have heard of David Barton.
Second, the NPR Web site home page subheadline is that "David Barton's view of U.S. history is popular with conservative churches, universities and the GOP." If this guy is "popular," someone must have heard of him, no? He certainly sells a lot of books. I've heard of him. Maybe NPR thinks its listeners don't go to conservative churches or universities and aren't Republicans, but that they also don't read the New York Times?