SFChron Op-ed Lays Into Media for Undercounting Protest Crowds

[Rose Siding]

WHILE TENS of thousands of spirited anti-war marchers were still entering the San Francisco Civic Center on Sunday, March 18, ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War & End Racism) Coalition organizers got word that a Chronicle reporter covering the event had already determined that only 3,000 people were present. The San Francisco march was part of a worldwide day of protest against on the fourth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Mainstream media undercounting of progressive demonstrations is nothing new, but this one had a magician's touch. With just a few keystrokes, a reporter made 90 percent of Sunday's crowd disappear, hundreds of whom have since expressed their outrage......

We don't know why The Chronicle published such a shocking undercount, but we do know that the first line of the Monday Chronicle's report stated that just 3,000 people marched in San Francisco on Sunday -- fewer, oddly enough, than took to the streets in many U.S. cities. It wasn't just people in the Bay Area who were misinformed by The Chronicle's article; the Associated Press spread The Chronicle's ludicrous number across the country.

....When tens of thousands of people come together to engage in collective free-speech actions, they have the right to expect that their message and very presence will be reported on in a fair and objective manner.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/03/26/EDGC7N72TT1.DTL

[babylonsister]

1. Nom! There's nothing so infuriating. People go to great effort to

show up for protests, and I think it does the country a disservice to not report the true numbers.

....When tens of thousands of people come together to engage in collective free-speech actions, they have the right to expect that their message and very presence will be reported on in a fair and objective manner.


:thumbsup:

[tavalon]

5. When I went to the Sept 24th 2005 protest

in DC, there were well over half a million people there. It was reported locally and nationally as "tens of thousands" which I took to calling 60 tens of thousands and have since taken to multiplying all marches by that multiplier. It seems to hold.

[Gman]

2. "....When tens of thousands of people come together to engage

in collective free-speech actions, they have the right to expect that their message and very presence will be reported on in a fair and objective manner."

Not in Bush and Cheney's America.

[EFerrari]

3. I was there with my mom. We couldn't see the begining or the end

of the march.

And I heard this organizer call out the Chron reporter exactly as he says he did in the article.

[Smarmie Doofus]

4. K & R makes 5 , but...

...this is one reason why we need better strategies to end this war. Better than marches/demos, that is.

Corporate America is aok with this war. They're not dying and it's nothing but $$$. What's not to like?

US media is disinformation arm of corporate America. Of course they will undercount and minimize.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. 'Bout freakin' time! nt