Numbers are hard (if you’re a bad reporter)

There was a nationwide demonstration on Presidents’ Day against the Musk/Trump regime. Here’s how one media outlet handled it:

In Frankfort, more than 200 people descended on Kentucky’s Capitol. Organized under the name 50501, short for 50 protests, 50 states, one day, the events came together through posts made online and on sites such as Reddit.

I was at this demonstration. Here’s a video of the crowd.

This pan of the crowd shows the estimate isn’t even close. As you see to the right of the speaker, 10 people are standing on the steps. A simple estimate based on that observation would place the crowd near 1,000. 

But turnout at liberal demonstrations seems to always be underestimated. This happened yesterday in Oregon:

Oregonian says 1,000. Person paying attention says more like 2,000.

The media tendency to overestimate MAGA and underrate people trying to defend democracy is atrocious. They’ve been getting away with it for too long.

One response to “Numbers are hard (if you’re a bad reporter)”

  1. The nationwide ‘Hands Off!’ rally – The Bluegrass Blues Podcast Avatar

    […] Second of all, it’s not “hundreds.” Even the CJ photos show there are more than a thousand people there. But, as we’ve noted before, a lot of reporters are too stupid to do an accurate crowd count. […]

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