Measuring & Muffling Dissent-by the Numbers. Corp Media's Crowd Count!

[autorank]

”U.S. corporate media - collectively, as cynical and dishonest a human cohort as has ever been assembled, far out-slicking the business/political class they serve - are sticklers for the numbers when the interests of the powerful are involved.” What more can I say…great article.

Measuring and Muffling Dissent - By the Numbers

by BAR Executive Editor Glen Ford

"Slow-moving domestic resistance cannot hope to keep pace
with the imperial juggernaut, especially if the measure of success is
bodies reported to be present on The Mall."

LINK

Either the largest or second-largest U.S. demonstration yet against the Iraq war occurred in Washington, this past weekend, or it didn't. There will be no official figure. Ever since the U.S. Parks Service got caught brazenly underestimating the multitudes that converged on the Capitol Mall for the Million Man March, in 1995, the feds have refused to release protest crowd counts. In effect, the Park Service was saying: believe our undercount, or you'll get no count at all.

Federal silence on the numbers actually better serves the interests of the powers-that-be than the previous policy of lying about crowd size. In the absence of an official estimate, corporate media become the default public arbiters of protest numbers. Thus, corporate media tell tens of millions of us that merely "tens of thousands" showed up for the United for Peace and Justice rally, on Saturday, while organizers inform their far more limited audiences that 400-500,000 people participated.

U.S. corporate media - collectively, as cynical and dishonest a human cohort as has ever been assembled, far out-slicking the business/political class they serve - are sticklers for the numbers when the interests of the powerful are involved. Mass audiences are bombarded with ephemeral daily statistics from stock exchanges, despite the fact only a tiny fraction of the public cares about or has any direct interest in the cascade of digits and decimal points. Commerce-related data are infinitely interesting; people-related data are not, unless related to consumer spending habits. Data that tend to affirm the superiority of the American political-economic order, such as GDP (gross domestic product), are celebrated. Data that illuminate gross disparities in wealth and income are left buried inside the grand macro-measurements - secrets made unavailable to the general public by the corporate organs that claim a special mandate (privilege) to inform the public.



"Facts that pertain to issues vital to national and world survival are treated as quasi-reality."