I'm sure that's probably true. Most of the folks we ran with were the big city papers - NY Times, Washington Times, St. Louis Post Dispatch and the Globe Democrat, L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune & Sun - Canadian Papers, and at that time NBC and CBS affiliates who were owned by publishers. I'd be surprised if the smaller towns were part of the debate.
Hit the link I saw on the CourtTV web paer to read about another Durham rape prosecution with very unusual deal making and no evidence:
http://www.monkeytime.org/archive/October2002.html#durhamDNA2