A small debate has been whipped up over just how many individuals showed up for the Glenn Beck “Restoring Honor” rally in Washington. Beck claims that around 500,000 of his loyal enthusiasts arrived to pay homage. Some Republican politicians are saying a million were there. Whether or not an event is deemed significant within the media often depends upon how numerous individuals show up. Believers overestimate the number and detractors do the opposite. But an accurate count of the huge crowd of angry white people summoned by Beck to the site of Dr. Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream speech” on the 47th anniversary of that event is probably impossible.
Traditional bias of The rally for Glenn Beck attendance
Glenn Beck rally attendance numbers reached heights upwards of 500,000, said Beck and conservative commentators for instance Joe Scarborough at MSNBC. Their assertions are typical said the Christian Science Monitor. The Monitor said that numbers are influenced by the estimator’s self interest. The gate will always be a teeming throng of unexpected magnitude to event promoters. Those who are not in favor of the cause could be counted on to dismiss their assertions. There is always controversy. After the “Million Man March” in October 1995, an official estimate of presence by the National Park Service was about 400,000. Disputing the numbers, the event’s organizers threw their lawyers on the park service, which has since gotten out of the business of counting crowds.
CBS News looks for the truth
The group at Glenn Beck’s rally was large enough to compromise the subway service in Washington. Eschewing a mere estimate, Columbia Broadcasting System News stepped up to hire an outfit called AirPhotoslive.com to conduct an airborne assessment. Photos were shot from above. The crowd spread from the Lincoln Memorial around the Reflecting Pool and over to the Washington Monument . Based on the images, AirPhotosLive gave an estimate of 87,000 individuals in the guests. Given the estimate came with a 9,000-person margin of error, the attendance could have been someplace between 78,000 and 96,000.
National politics not enough space for truth or explanation
The day after the event Beck preened. He said the capacity of the audience was somewhere between 300,000 and 500,000. Republican congresswoman Michelle Bachman was quoted in a number of news outlets as saying “we’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today — because we were witnesses”. But Southern Fried Science offers some perspective. However many individuals were in the crowd doesn’t matter, since the people who were will believe what they really want to believe. He points out a Pew Research Center poll that found 18 percent of the country believes President Obama is a Muslim. If a lesson could be drawn from the issue, it is that national politics and religion, especially when mixed together, have nothing to do with reality.
Additional reading
Christian Science Monitor
csmonitor.com
CBS
cbsnews.com
Southern Fried Science
southernfriedscience.com
