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News :: Protest Activity |
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RNC Protest is Largest Ever |
Current rating: 0 |
by Darrin Drda
Email: d_drda (nospam) hotmail.com (verified) |
29 Aug 2004
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Depending on who you ask, the protests in NYC in the run-up to the Republican National Convention have been attended by thousands, tens of thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands of people. But there seems to be universal agreement that the demonstration is the largest ever against a national political convention. |
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During and after every political demonstration of appreciable size, media outlets rarely agree on the numbers, often submitting vastly different and sometimes conflicting reports on the size of a given gathering. An oft-cited and logical reason for this is the difficulty of obtaining an accurate head count in a massive and moving crowd, although it’s hard to believe that police and intelligence agencies don’t have the ability to make accurate estimates, even if their policy in recent years has been to keep such information to themselves. This leaves the guestimation up to individual reporters and their editors, whose own political leanings often lead them to use numbers that conform to the version of reality they prefer, most often deflating the size of a political event in order to downplay its importance or to marginalize dissent.
Depending on who you ask, the protests in NYC in the run-up to the Republican National Convention have been attended by thousands, tens of thousands, or maybe hundreds of thousands of people. But there seems to be universal agreement that the demonstration is the largest ever against a national political convention.
Below is a series of links to articles about the RNC protests from major media outlets, with differing crowd estimates.
HUNDREDS of THOUSANDS:
Reuters
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6097298
New Zealand Herald
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3587914&thesection=news&thesubsection=world&thesecondsubsection=&reportID=1162625
OVER 200,000:
Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45145-2004Aug29.html
OVER 100,000:
USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-29-convention-protests_x.htm
Boston Herald
http://news.bostonherald.com/election/view.bg?articleid=41932
TENS of THOUSANDS:
CNN
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/08/29/gop.main/index.html
NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/29/politics/campaign/29CND-PORT.html
Voice of America
http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=87D0A6D7-3FD9-4437-9931A461E36B9BD1&title=Tens%20of%20Thousands%20Protest%20Republican%20Convention
SF Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2004/08/29/politics1405EDT0527.DTL
Houston Chronicle
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/2767162
Telegraph (UK)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/08/30/wus30.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/08/30/ixportaltop.html
THOUSANDS
ABC News ("Tens of thousands" in 1st paragraph)
http://abcnews.go.com/wire/Politics/ap20040829_1502.html
Miami Herald
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/politics/9531326.htm
Bloomberg
http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=aFGCbYh2zlBE&refer=us |
This work is in the public domain |
