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Canadian Media Up to Usual Tricks Following Toronto Marriage Rally

TORONTO, Tuesday May 24, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) The moment yesterday’s heavily attended Toronto Marriage Rally at Queen’s Park disbanded, media all across Canada launched into their all-too-familiar numbers games. Estimates for attendance at the rally varied in the extreme. The scenario was predicted at the rally by organizer Rev. Tristan Emmanuel who challenged reporters to report on the massive gathering, and to do so fairly.

Going by the reporting of the Toronto Star, the largest circulation paper in the country, the event never actually occurred (nowhere in today’s issue was the March mentioned). The Globe and Mail typically had only a photo of one praying marriage defender in front of the tiny group of pro-gay counter-protesters who tried to disrupt the rally. LifeSiteNews.com has learned that Globe writer Joe Friesen actually wrote a story for the paper on the rally but it was rejected by the editors. 

Sun chain publisher Quebecor's 24 Hours newspaper reported a meager ‘hundreds’ showed up to the defend marriage rally.  Canadian Press, usually unable to restrain its liberal bias on these kinds of issues, gave a less-than-reasonable estimate of 3,000 present at the rally. A simple eyeball of the crowd from the stage made it obvious that the crowd was far larger than that.

Muslim Imam Suleiman Yacoob - only some of left side of crowd showing

However, none of the manufactured estimates match up with the healthy five or six thousand unofficial estimate of the crowd by the police supervisor at the event, or the far more likely official number of nine or ten thousand given by the event coordinators. Jim Hughes, president of CLC, gave the most optimistic figure of the day, declaring in his speech that “there must be twenty-thousand of you here. Congratulations!” Hughes has organized many large rallies, including some of the largest in Canada, and has personally counted attendees at quite a few of these rallies.

For pro-life activists who have attended the annual March for Life in Ottawa, and who are accustomed to sparse, inaccurate, or frequently non-existent mainstream media coverage given the event, it has become a matter of curiosity to see how Canada’s controlled media will report, or not report, on pro-life, pro-family issues and events.

Rev. Emmanuel speaking - only far right side of crowd showing in photo

The National Post gave the Toronto March for Marriage the most balanced mainstream media account, presenting a front-page story, photographs, and reporting which included various participator’s estimates of crowd size, Although finally concluding with a far too modest, 3500. Other news-sources, such as 24 Hours, used familiar reporting tricks, downplaying numbers into fictitious mere hundreds, giving an equal credence and force to the twenty or thirty counter-protestors present, and printing photos which fail to give any sense of the breadth of the crowd-size and significance of the speakers. Readers of 24 Hours or the Globe would have received absolutely no idea of what really took place at the rally.

The Canadian Press (CP) story and it shameless, manufactured low estimate was picked up today by other Canadian news publications. CP is the same news source that gave the ludicrously false number of 4,000 for the Ottawa March for Marriage, ignoring the official police count of 15,000.

Rev. Emmanuel concluded the rally encouraging particpants to seek out alternative media for getting true information on family issues mentioning specifically both 100 Huntley Street and LifeSiteNews.com. Rev. Emmanuel said the mainstream media fails to represent the heartland of Canada and they should be made to know that the heartland will not stand for biased and false reporting.

To express your concerns to the Globe and Mail and Toronto Star:
Globe and Mail News Editor Angus Frame

Toronto Star
Editor-in-Chief: Giles Gherson
Deputy Managing Editors: Joe Hall, Phil Bingley
The main newsroom phone number is 416-869-4300; fax 416-869-4328; email

JJ

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