Friday, August 30, 2013

COMPARING CROWDS: WHO DREW MORE PEOPLE TO THE LINCOLN MEMORIAL, OBAMA OR BECK?

The Blaze ^ | Aug. 29, 2013 11:11am | Mike Opelka

Wednesday was a big day in Washington, D.C. Huge crowds swarmed the area beneath the Lincoln Memorial and along the Reflecting Pool as three American presidents — Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter (George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush could not attend due to health reasons) — a host of congressional representatives and dignitaries gathered to mark the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech.
NBC News initially described the crowd in a rather nebulous manner, reporting that “throngs of people” were there. The post was amended to say “tens of thousands.”
The New York Times coverage only mentioned crowd size once, using the phrase “tens of thousands of Americans.”
ABC News’ Mike Levine quoted “unofficial” law enforcement estimates saying “over 20,000″ people were on the National Mall just after 2 p.m.
CBS News actually posted a photo from above the crowd, estimating “tens of thousands” of people.
Back in 2010 during “Restoring Honor,” AirPhotosLive provided CBS with the crowd estimate of 87,000.
Looking back to “Restoring Honor,” media accounts of the crowd size varied quite a bit. However, even the lowest estimate from CBS News appears to have dwarfed Wednesday’s event.
CBS News: 87,000 (plus or minus 9,000)
ABC News: 100,000
NBC News: Tens, perhaps hundreds of thousands.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Between 120,000 – 200,000
Washington Post: Between 80,000 – 200,000
Australia’s Daily Telegraph: 300,000
How many were on the National Mall on 8-28-2013 vs. 8-28-2010? The photos show a compelling argument that Beck’s rally was an easy winner in the total attendees category.

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