The “Restoring Honor” rally that Glenn Beck held in Washington this past weekend brought in huge numbers of people from all over the nation. Anyone who watched the coverage of the event could see that.

CBS News has a reputation of slanting the news that stretches back to documentaries like “Hunger in America” (which wrongly described the death of a child as caused by hunger) and “The Selling of the Pentagon” (which took the answers that an Assistant Secretary of State gave to one question and, through editing, made his answer appear to be to a completely different question.) One might think that the network could be interested, in a much more competitive news market, in gaining respect for objectivity. Apparently not. Obviously, the number of people who attended the Restoring Honor rally cannot be determined exactly, but must be based on estimates — though hopefully the various estimates would be in the ballpark of reality and not vary radically.

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann estimated that one million people attended the rally. Beck himself estimated less — 500,000. The National Park Service, which has been ordered off the official estimate business since the Million Man March of 1995, gave MSNBC an unofficial estimate of 300,000. ABC News thought “over 100,000” attended. Even the New York Times thought perhaps half a million people were at the event. So what was the estimated crowd size according to CBS News?  87,000 people.

Photos posted by Noel Sheppard at Newbusters show that the mall was completely packed from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. The BBC photo, in particular, shows an overflowing crowd. 

The actual size of the entire National Mall that the public could occupy is 11.5 million square feet (11,500 feet from the steps of the Capital to the Lincoln Memorial and 1,000 feet wide). If everyone at the rally had 3.5 feet in each direction of empty space, then attendance at the rally would have been one million — Congresswoman Bachman’s estimate. If the CBS News figure is correct and 87,000 people attended the rally, then each person in attendance would have 172.4 square feet or each person would be separated, on average, from the other attendees by 13.1 feet.

If each member at the rally had five feet of space in each direction — 25 square feet per person or five feet, on average, in every direction — then the crowd would be an estimated 460,000 people over the area of the National Mall, which was about what Glenn Beck estimated. Considering that in the photos of the crowds, large sections of the area photographed has people packed closely together, with less than five feet of separation, then that number is probably a low-ball figure. What is particularly curious about the CBS News estimate is that it was provided by an aerial AirPhotosLive. What is not curious at all is that CBS News, which has been completely unsympathetic over the years to the message Beck had at the rally, came back with an extraordinarily low estimate.

Photo: AP Images

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Mary Newlon said:

Size of Beck's crowd Who watches CBS anymore? Their credibility went down the tubes a long time ago with people who watch the news. Personally, I watch CNN and FOX and BBC and some on PBS. CBS is so slanted as is NBC they are not worth the time.

September 01, 2010 | url

This was a JBS rally, Lowly rated comment [Show]

Check 6 or die said:

Underestimated I was at the rally. What you can't see from the pictures is that people under the trees were packed as tightly as can be to get away from the sun. There were even people sitting under bushes. Any estimate is going to be underestimated.

September 01, 2010

jonboy said:

... Definitely more than 500,000 there. There was elbow to elbow contact under trees as was stated in earlier comment. One million is not unbelievable, as people flowed in even thirty minutes to an hour after the event began, most hung tough til 2P.M. or so then the sun and hunger got the best of them. The only time I have ever seen this many people was 9/12/09 Tea Party in Washington at Capitol last year. The crowd was so large, there was a marching line 50 ft wide shoulder to shoulder and three miles long. The Demwits should be quaking in their boots as they will devastated in November. On a personal note about the elections, you Nevadans, vote for Sharron Angle, unless of course you are happy with the way Harry Reid has run our state in the ground. Sharron may not be a genius, but she's proved that she cares about the state and that is something that Harry used to do, but not anymore,

September 01, 2010

Roger said:

300k not 500k promise keepers rally was at least twice the size

September 03, 2010 | url

Billo said:

... Wow. CBS didn't make an estimate. CBS hired a company that gets paid to estimate crowd sizes. The company was overhead, above the Beck rally in balloons, taking photos with high-resolution cameras. It is instructive that Bruce Walker posted a link to the long-shot BBC photo, but not to the photos taken directly overhead by the company that CBS hired. Those photos show plenty of elbow room between people. Frisbee room, in pleny of cases. Of course, you can claim that "under the trees," people were lying on top of each other 10 deep, and filling the tree branches to the point of breaking. No doubt, Michelle Bachmann would.

September 16, 2010

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September 19, 2010 | url