In their article, C. J. Pattie and R. J. Johnston (2003) do me the honour of putting a key aspect of my approach to the relationship between civic literacy and political participation to the test. Do recent British data, they ask, confirm my expectation that newspaper reading enhances civic literacy, and thus voter turnout? Though I am gratified that they chose to address this issue, and in such a thorough manner, and though there is much in the article which is valuable, I must ultimately take issue with their methodology and, thus, the central conclusion they draw.