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Email: "Mainstream Media Hugely Underreports Washington 9/12 Health Care, Spending Protest Numbers"

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Best estimate is that 800,000 participated in event BY LifeSiteNews.com By Peter J. SmithWASHINGTON, D.C., September 13, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Hundreds of thousands of Americans descended upon the U.S. Capitol for the 9/12 Washington D.C. Taxpayers March, to march against President Barack Obama's nationalization of the US health-care industry by means of health-care reform and other domestic policies. Most mainstream media sources in the US, however, seriously underreported those numbers to the public. The New York Times first stated that only "thousands" came to march on Washington, later revising that number to "tens of thousands," but gave priority coverage (and an actual number) to a much smaller pro-government health care rally with President Obama that was attended by some 15,000 people. The Washington Post and Associated Press also reported that "tens of thousands" descended on Washington. As with the Times, those reporters did not give any authoritative counts from officials or even an estimate.Of the media television networks, only NBC revised its estimates based on video footage to say that "hundreds of thousands" - not tens of thousands - of Americans were in the streets. ABC reported only that Pete Piringer, a D.C. Fire Department spokesman, put the crowd at 60,000 - 70,000; however, Piringer could only give a personal estimate and was not authorized by the DCFD to give an official guess on the crowd.At the same time, the London-based Daily Mail raised the ceiling in terms of crowd estimates, reporting that up to two million Americans had arrived to march and protest President Obama's domestic policies, especially the health-care reform bill. During the march, D.C. Capitol police on the scene told attendees that there may have been as many as 1.2 million people gathered at noon. But Capitol Police officials were unwilling to give a final official estimate to the crowds.The National Park Service has also refused to give an estimate for the number of protestors gathered at the rally and has not done so since 1995 when it announced that Louis Farrakhan's "Million Man March" of 1995 attracted under 500,000 people, and not 1.5-2 million as he claimed. FreedomWorks, one of the sponsors and coordinators of the event had expected between 20,000-30,000 registrants to show for the rallies, and had only obtained a permit for 100,000 people. Due to the massive overflow, D.C. Park Police requested that the March begin at 11:30 AM, or an hour and a half earlier than scheduled.At the same time, FreedomWorks, one of the sponsors of the event, estimated the marching crowd at 450,000 and growing, based on a "people meter" set up at the corner of 11th Street and Pennsylvania before noon. FreedomWorks has lately revised its estimates to say that 600-800,000 people (down from an initial guess of 1.5 million) had gathered to protest President Obama in Washington, D.C. But whatever the numbers, the organization has said that it beat out President Obama's rally in Minnesota by any count and is working with Jane's Information Group to release a better estimate from more scientific data.In the meantime, the hard work of obtaining facts on the crowd size has largely become the responsibility of the "new media." Charlie Martin, a Colorado computer scientist, using Park Service crowd-estimating formulas and available data on the march, writes for Pajamas Media that a conservative estimate for the crowd would be 800,000. (see here)By comparison that number is comparable to President Barack Obama's inaugural crowd, which was reported by the mainstream media at 1.8 million people, but later revealed by satellite photos to be closer to 850,000.In related news, a new Pew Research poll shows that public trust in the media to report "facts" has fallen to a 20 year low.On Sunday, the day after the March, Pew Research Center for People and the Press reported the results of a poll that revealed that confidence in the media to report facts is at its lowest levels in 20 years. Only 29 percent said they believe the media can get its facts straight, only 18 percent believe that the media deals fairly with all sides. 63 percent believe that stories are often inaccurate and 74 percent say one side is favored over another in reporting. http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/mainstream-media-hugely-underreports-washington-9-12-health-care-spending-p/

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