Event organizers tend to inflate audience numbers at events because it makes the event look more successful. Critics denounce those numbers for the converse. When the shoe is on the other foot, the rhetoric changes, predictably.
Enter the science of estimating crowd size.
Steve Doig shares how he estimated a crowd size of 80,000 for the Glenn Beck rally; he was commissioned by CBS news. Conversely, the NYT reports 300,000 — the low end of Beck’s estimate.
! am amused to see that those who embraced my Obama inauguration estimate as soberly realistic are now attacking the Beck rally estimate, produced using exactly the same methods, as deliberately biased.
Known for gnawing at complex questions like a terrier with a bone. Digital evangelist, writer, teacher. Transplanted Southerner; teach newbies to ride motorcycles. @kegill (Twitter and Mastodon.social); wiredpen.com