Oh the media.. compare and contrast BBC and CNN

[nadinbrzezinski]

Seems the election today was held in OH. The BBC world Service is telling us that they estimate the voting percentage at 60%, yet I heard claerly on CNN (my mom had it on as they are visiting) 70%+...

So any takers who is closer to the truth?

Was this election held in OH?

[RafterMan]

1. That's why they call them "estimates"

"The IECI (International Election Commission of Iraq) clarified an earlier estimate of a 72 percent turnout, saying that the "figures are only very rough, word-of-mouth estimates gathered informally from the field."

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/31/iraq.main/index.html

[dbt]

2. Yet, these "very rough, word-of-mouth estimates"

are breathlessly reported by the Murkin "News" nets as truth and there is not one call for the reports to be verified before they are broadcast.

Compare and contrast this with Rathergate.

:argh:
dbt

[ElsewheresDaughter]

3. sheeple hear only what they want to hear and disregard the rest.......

RE: Iraq vote

MSM is telling us that "60% of registered Iraq voters turned out to vote"
keyword "registered", OK, so what is the number of "registered" voters?

Population of Iraq is 25 million. of which half are children under the age of 15. so that leaves 12.5 million Iraqis of eligible age to vote. of those how many actually registered?



now remember that 1.5 to 2 million of the voters were expates who voted in 16 countries around the world including the US.

bear with me

so of the "60% of registered voters" that the MSM is saying "6 to 8 million is really just 4.5 to 6.5 million "registered" of Iraq who voted. ( my guesstimate 5.5M)

what is 60% of 4.5 to 6.5 million? isn't that the real number of Iraqi citizens that voted?

how do we gage a success or do i have really really incoherent thinking? :shrug:


on edit: i just found this tidbit on SoCalDem's thread
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3033327

"Although results are not in, and won't be for at least 24 hours, preliminary figures indicate a turnout of anywhere from half to 60 percent of registered voters, especially heavy in Shi'ite and Kurdish regions. The voter registration list consisted of nearly 14 million names in the food-ration public-distribution database, and the implication that if you didn't vote you didn't get your ration card renewed was less than subtle. As Khalid, a young Iraqi blogger, related: http://secretsinbaghdad.blogspot.com /

"The way the voting happened, is that you go to the voting center, and you go to the man that is your ration dealer, the one that you take the ration from him every month, so you tell him that you are gonna vote, he marks your name on his list, and then you vote!!!
that way the goverment will know exactly who voted and who didnt, two dealers said that the next years' card won't be given to those who didnt vote..

That so many registered voters didn't show up at the polls, in spite of this sort of intimidation, should tell us something about the depth of the split that sunders Iraqi society. The nonvoters – in this context, the complete rejectionists – polled more than any single party. This result should dampen the oddly artificial triumphalism of the moment and let us give thought to what this election portends.

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