NewsBusters clings to bogus claim of 2 million protesters; hilarity ensues

[babylonsister]

Jeebus. What malarkey.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/200909140018


NewsBusters clings to bogus claim of 2 million protesters; hilarity ensues

September 14, 2009 1:29 pm ET by Eric Boehlert


The punchline: This is supposed to be a site that critiques the media. But what does NewsBusters do instead? It makes stuff up.

The idiocy honors go to Tom Blumer, who states as fact that Saturday's D.C. anti-Obama rally "drew an estimated 1-2 million people." Where did that (bogus) number come from? Blumer won't say. He never provides a link and never quotes a single law enforcement source to back up that claim. Of course, Blumer can't do that because the "1-2 million people" number is a flat-out lie. It's pure right-wing fantasy.

But that does not stop Blumer from delving into all kinds of (Wikipedia!) research to explain just where yesterday's rally stands in terms of the largest D.C. events while. Blumer does this, of course, while using concocted numbers to size-up the modest crowd.

Behold the NewsBusters wonder:

If even the low end of the D.C. rally estimate holds, it would be the largest-ever gathering in Washington not related to a presidential inauguration -- larger than the misnamed Million Man March (October 16, 1995; while others claimed almost a million were there, the National Park Service estimated 400,000), larger than Moratorium Day (November 15, 1969; Wikipedia says it had 500,000; other sources report lower numbers), and larger than the day of Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech (August 28, 1963; 250,000).

If the high end of the estimate holds, it would be the largest gathering of any kind in Washington, exceeding the 1.8 million claimed to have attended Barack Obama's presidential inauguration.

Again, keep in mind the "1-2 million people" is pure fiction. It's a nifty-sounding number dreamt up by right-wingers. It has no basis in reality. But that doesn't stop NewsBusters from using bogus numbers to critique the "liberal media."

[ixion]

1. at face value, it's BS... "a million, give or take a million"

is not even a valid estimate in it's own right, because it declares the margin-of-error to be 1 million.

One million people is a whole-lotta people, and would definitely be noticeable, one way or the other.

[tridim]

2. Fuzzy math is the new math.

Thanks Duh-bya. :eyes:

[obliviously]

3. How many do the park service say were there?

[WeDidIt]

5. The PArk Police DO NOT ESTIMATE ANY MORE.

They stopped after Nation of Islam sued them over the estimate for the Million Man March.

AP reported 50,000.

ABC News quoted D.C. Fire Department at 60,000 to 70,000

[babylonsister]

6. Shuster: Freedomworks=demonstration attracted 30,000, Park cops says that is being 'generous'

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6533963

[intheflow]

7. The park service stopped estimating crowd sizes

after the Million Man March. I read an unofficial estimate from an unnamed cop was 50-60,000 people because the protest didn't go beyond 3rd Street and that's about how many people could fit there. Contrast that with Obama's inauguration where there were so many people on the Mall I wasn't even able to physically get next to the Washington Monument. That's the difference between 50,000 people and over a million.

[gratuitous]

4. Their back-up martyrdom excuses are already in place

It's the librul media trying to undercount their numbers; it's because a lot of people arrived late; it's because a lot of people left early (for their jobs, ostensibly); it's because Glenn Beck wasn't there in person; it's because the tea baggers were all spread out; it's because the tea baggers were all concentrated in one place where film and digital photography don't work (some kind of time-space anomaly that you have to have written for Star Trek to fully understand or explain); ABC News said it was 2 million.

Of course, the mutually exclusive nature of many of these excuses won't stop News Busters or a host of other right wing blatherers from using some or all of them, even in the same breath. And nobody sitting across from them at the discussion desk will notice.

[intheflow]

8. ABC News NEVER said it was 2 million!

They have issued a statement saying FreedomWorks pulled both the numbers and the ABC attribute out of their asses: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/protest-crowd-size-estimate-falsely-attributed-abc-news/story?id=8558055

[gratuitous]

14. Absolutely right

And none of their other excuses are true, either. But you'll hear each and every one of them repeated again and again by the wingnut blatherers until more mainstream talking chuckleheads, people who should know better, will say them themselves, without any conscious thought that they're adopting a lie. It will start with "some disinformation" is out there that A, B and C. Then it will be "some people say A, B and C." The next step will be that "responsible" mainstream Republicans are saying A, B and C. Then they'll drop the pretense that someone else is saying it, and just stuff the lies into their own mouths, and wonder when the Democrats are going to address the "serious issues" of A, B, and C, which will have magically become true.

[blogslut]

9. And Glenn Beck fed the prayerful masses

...with only a half a pack of hot dogs and two buns.

Oh wait, he didn't show.

[sharp_stick]

10. These idiots have no idea

just how big a crowd 1,000,000 people would form, the entire mall would be jammed shoulder to shoulder and people would still be spilled out onto side streets. That number is simply beyond their comprehension because they are so basically stupid.

Most people start to lose number comprehension around a billion but they are all much, much smarter than anybody knowingly supporting the million moran march.

[Tarc]

11. The Daily Mail claims "up to a million"

But does not cite the source for the claim. Unfortunately, some teabaggers out there are clinging to this one.

[struggle4progress]

13. Perhaps they instructed their man to count carefully, handed him a set of opera glasses, and packed

him off to Ben Nevis? In such circumstances, I might simply opt to report after enjoying an afternoon of single malt

[Sebastian Doyle]

12. IT WAS RELLY 2 MILLYUN PEEPLE DAM IT!!11!! THE LIBRUL MEEDIA IS LIEING AGAIN!!111!!!!

THE ONLY REESON IT LOOKED LIKE LESS THAN THAT IS BECASE JESUS RAPCHURED A BUNCH OF US UP TO HEVEN JUST BEFOUR THE RALLEY!1!!!1!1 :crazy:

[burning rain]

15. Huh!

NewsBusters is always very tedious and inane with their bawling and crying about how the meanypants media are doin' conservatives wrong, but this embrace of wild fabrication is bad even for them.