09-01-2010 CJR DISCUSSES BECK CROWD COUNT The Columbia Journalism Review, considered the Bible for Journalists, has weighed in on the Glenn Beck rally crowd count. It's an excellent read.
08-29-2010 BECK CROWD COUNT: 87,000 TO 500,000? How many people attended the Glenn Beck "Restoring Honor" rally Saturday at the Lincoln Memorial? Associated Press reporters simply took the safe route and tallied the count as "tens of thousands" in the Kansas City Star. USA Today used the same explanation for the count (LINK). The New York Timesreported that NBC said the crowd "was closer to 300,000." A story (8/30) on Yahoo! News! says the debate has some saying a million people were on hand. However, CBS reported on its "CBS Sunday Morning" show that a firm it had retained said there were only 87,000 people in attendance. FOX, which hosts Beck's show, estimated the crowd was more than 500,000. A group called "Freedomworks" said 400,000 to 500,000 were expected to attend the event. "We here at CMR talked to a few officers, who were on duty today, and they gave us unofficial estimates of around 300,000 people," said another site. "One officer said it had to be at least 300,000 as the people were crammed in the mall all over the place. Judging by the pictures we have seen, we think that is a pretty good estimate of the Glenn Beck Rally Attendance." And the news media wonders why it has lost so much credibility? When it cannot come within 400,000 on a crowd count in a public place such as the Lincoln Memorial why should anyone believe what is reported? Unfortunately, Kansas Citians will now have to hear the shopworn story about how the crowd attending the annual Plaza Lighting Ceremony had been grossly overestimated for years. However, that was simply a public relations tactic of inflating the numbers each year to show growth until the numbers became an obvious joke. In this day and age it is ridiculous that crowd estimates at a major event like Beck's are simply "guesstimates" based on political leanings. The National Park Service used to be the definitive source for crowd estimates in Washington, D.C., but after being criticized for supposedly under-counting the number of participants at the "Million Man March" in 1995, the Park Service stopped providing the information in 1997.
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