an exchange of letters between the NYT ombusdman and me

Chuck0 chuck at mutualaid.org
Mon Jan 20 20:05:16 PST 2003


steve philion wrote:


> No one disputes, then, that over 100K (the number the police chief stated
> showed up at the last *smaller* rally) showed up at the demo (and keep in
> mind, that is in very cold weather, which probably explains the smaller
> number marching).
>
> The excuses your newspaper and the rest of the media have come up with for
> claiming that only 'tens of thousands' or, even more commonly, 'thousands'
> showed up in DC is simply astounding. No such confusion arises with a
> protest report from Venezuela, why must it incessantly occur in our own
> Washington DC?
>
> Stephen Philion
> MPLS, MN

While it's pretty obvious that the NYT isusing the wrong numbers, let's not make the same mistake ourselves and buy into the outlandish estimates being claimed by ANSWER.

Many of the local activists estimated the attendance for the January 18th protests at around 200,000. That is a charitable number, yet ANSWER is now claiming 500,000.

I challenge ANSWER to back up their claims with some hard evidence. Engaging in outright lies about how many people show up at demonstrations makes us all look less credible in the public eye.

I initially estimated that Saturday's crowd was around 200,000. That's a pretty good turnout, a big increase over last October's protests.

Yet, ANSWER is claiming a half million, which is incredibly overstated. ANSWER set up their rally on the Mall in such a way as to invite comparisons to previous Mall rallies. So I looked up pcitures and articles on the Million Man March and the Promise Keepers rallies, both of which I attended. Even when you take into account the controversy over numbers at those two protests, one can look at the photos and compare. The ANSWER rally filled up 1/4 of the Mall from 3rd St to 14th St, at best. That works out to a crowd of 200,000 or less.

Shit, maybe I should just put together a webpage on this. ;-)

Chuck0

------------------------------------------------------------ Personal homepage -> http://chuck.mahost.org/ Infoshop.org -> http://www.infoshop.org/ MutualAid.org -> http://www.mutualaid.org/ Alternative Press Review -> http://www.altpr.org/ Practical Anarchy Online -> http://www.practicalanarchy.org/ Anarchy: AJODA -> http://www.anarchymag.org/

"The state can't give you free speech, and the state can't take it away. You're born with it, like your eyes, like your ears. Freedom is something you assume, then you wait for someone to try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free..." ---Utah Phillips



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