Debunking Crowd Estimate Lies

I wrote about this previously, but now I have a video evidence.

Quick recap:
On Saturday, March 21st 2009, thousands of people gathered in DC to march on the Pentagon for peace. However, some people in the media felt the need to blatantly lie about the size of the crowd, claiming it was as low as a "few hundred."

Using footage, captured from a bridge as the march went by underneath, we estimated the size of the crowd. The footage, which was not of the entire crowd, clearly showed that these reports were severely low in their estimates. The process for estimating crowd size is an incredibly easy one. It is, literally, middle school difficulty math. As I said before:

First, you single out a small section. You want to use as large a section as possible with the constraints of time and ability to count all the people. You count how many people are in that block. You can then count how many times that block is represented by the entire crowd. There is obviously a margin of error, but it is actually quite accurate.

The fact that these news organizations neglected to take the small amount of time necessary to produce an accurate estimate is not surprising or important. What is important, is that these organizations reported a crowd estimate knowing full well that they had no idea what the real number was. They could have simply not reported a number. Since they did report one, without knowing if it was accurate, they were lying.

Here at Left Chattering, we estimated the size to be, at a minimum, 3,250 people.

And here is Left Chattering's latest video, which includes the footage we used to estimate the crowd size:

MSM Grossly Underestimates Number of Protesters

So, when I put one of my videos of the March on the Pentagon from this last weekend up on youtube, a comment alerted me that the MSM was underestimating the number. During the march, we came to a bridge, so I ran up to it and caught almost the entire march as it went by underneath. In middle school they taught us how people estimate crowd numbers at an event. It is a very simple method. First, you single out a small section. You want to use as large a section as possible with the constraints of time and ability to count all the people. You count how many people are in that block. You can then count how many times that block is represented by the entire crowd. There is obviously a margin of error, but it is actually quite accurate.

I went through my footage, which is not the entire group of people, but a very large swath of it. I stopped recording briefly to take a few pictures of all the camera people up on the bridge with me. I estimated the number of people in the footage I have, which means the margin of error (for guessing the entire crowd) is larger, but it also means I am more likely underestimating the number.

Based on my footage, I have come to the conclusion that there was at least 3,250 people partaking in the march. This is absurdly larger than some in the MSM are reporting.

NAFEESA SYEED reports that there were 2,500-3,000 at the Examiner. But, at the Washington Times Nafeesa Syeed reports that there were hundreds. And yet, a photo by SAUL LOEB is captioned on one of Nafeesa's articles at chron.com saying there are thousands. Why am I not surprised that the Washington Times version is the outlier? Nafeesa, were those your words or the Washington Times'?

KUTV also reported the hundreds.

Even Al-Arabiya picked up on the "hundreds" meme.


Is it really too much to ask from reporters that they actually do a little work before putting out estimates? It really did not take me that long. Seriously. This type of thing is easy. Get a good vantage point, take a picture, do the math. It was more difficult for me because I had to use video footage. And guess what, if you are too freakin' lazy to do a little bit of math, all you have to do is, not report any number. When you do report a number, you are implying you have a reasonable clue as to what the number is. That is lying. Washington Times, KUTV, Al-Arabiya, you are liars.

VIDEO: Anti-War March on the Pentagon

Finally, after several incredibly annoying technical difficulties, many of which I have yet to figure out, I have finished editing footage from the anti-war march on Saturday. So here it is:

Pics: Saturday Anti-War March on Pentagon

Saturday, March 21st 2009, Anti-war march to the Pentagon and war profiteer offices:

Video to come shortly... Hopefully tomorrow, if I can get a little sleep tonight.

(click to enlarge)

VIDEO: The Anti-Anti-War Protest - WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE, USE DISCRETION

Wow.

That is all.