Sunday, August 29, 2010

Glenn Beck Rally Attendance Another Controversial Topic

Glenn Beck's rally attendance is yet another controversy tied to the TV personality.  Glenn Beck's "non-political" rally, held at the National Mall, garnered a lot of controversy from the get-go.  


First, some civil rights leaders question Beck's motives for choosing the very same date and venue as the MLK "I have a dream" speech. 


CBS news reported yesterday that the attendance at the rally was 87,000.  That is the figure that we reported, as it came from a credible agency.  


However, through several comments and several other blog posts on line it became apparent that there could be some disconnect in the true attendance at the "restoring honor" rally.


The Restoring Honor rally attendance could have really reached into the hundreds of thousands. Given the photos of the event, news coverage, and more - that estimate sounds a lot more palatable. 


To put things in perspective, 87,000 people is about the same as a crowd for an Ohio State football game.  It's a lot of people, but hardly the crowd viewed at the nation's capital yesterday.


So what do you think? Do you think CBS's estimate of 87,000 was accurate, or do you think Glenn Beck's rally attendance was well over that?

52 comments:

  1. There was at least 87000 people standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. ;)

    I think CBS might have been a little low on that count...870,000 would be closer.

    CBS hates Glenn Beck. I'm starting to think CBS hates America too. Does CBS think we're such idiots that we won't believe our own eyes?

    This is exactly what Glenn Beck was talking about...No more lies, we want truth. Why is that so hard for the media to understand?

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  2. I think CBS is a BS news agency

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  3. See B.S.

    'nuff said.....

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  4. A friend of mine was on the ground there. She's a reporter and asked members of the park service about the attendance. Saturday morning, they said 600,000. That's SIX HUNDRED THOUSAND. Now we all know the park service does crowd estimating on a regular basis and quite often they underestimate crowd size. I've been in crowds of 75,000 and 85,000 people. This was a WEE bit bigger!

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  5. Why is CBS so afraid to report the truth? Maybe CBS should have their whole corporation listen to Glen Becks speech ....TELL THE TRUTH! Do you get it?

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  6. ABC,CBS,CNN,MSNBC,NBC lie.Look at their ratings total.
    They fear the truth except if its Liberal,Left,
    Blue or anti American.Bias Bast--ds.

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  7. The lot that me and my family were in held 300,000 when full. It was full. And that's not even counting the mall along the reflection pool, the people up at the Lincoln memorial and all the way back to the Washington memorial. 87,000 is a ridiculously low number.

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  8. I was there, it was a lot of people a least 500,000 plus.

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  9. As an experienced large scale logistics coordinator, I can confidently estimate this crowd to be well over the 600,000 mark..........Easy! A little math, goes a long way, CBS needs to fire their estimator or maybe it was just a typo and someone left off a few zeros!?!?!?!

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  10. CBS is a joke, not really big on the truth. Anyone who saw this is not as stupid as the lame stream media seems to think we are. 87k may be the number of viewers CBS gets in a week....that seems more like it.

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  11. Judging from many other reports from CBS I’d have to say this very low estimate was not unexpected. I believe Dan Rather set precedence at CBS and many more with this news agency follow in lock step with the misguided leaders employed there.

    I was not in attendance... looks like an amazing event though.
    Judging from the photos, the attendance appears to be well over the estimate of 87,000.
    The report from CBS falls in line with their style of reporting and journalism. Fake it till you Make it.

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  12. 87,000? While that would be a big turnout, there is no way you could make that estimate from just the aerial pictures at all. I wish I could I could have gone myself but could not. I believe that we have been sliding as a country for the last 20 years as "entitlement" programs and the govt giving the poor fish rather than investing in their abilitiy to fish. America will become great again when we come back to our core beliefs and individual rights. God gives us our rights not the US government.

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  13. i counted 590,602

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  14. For comparison purposes, here is what 100,000 people look like: http://stltoday.mycapture.com/mycapture/enlarge.asp?image=20860260&event=617178&CategoryID=38932

    Can someone please post an equivalent photo from the Beck rally?

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  15. That estimate is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. The area around the reflecting pool alone holds 150,000 to 200,000 people, and it was absolutely PACKED. On top of that, the side lawn to the left when looking at the Lincoln Memorial holds 300,000 people, and was literally shoulder to shoulder. Also, aerial photos do not account for the MASSIVE number of people standing beneath the trees on either side of the reflecting pool. In addition, the steps of the Lincoln Memorial were full, people were sitting on and around the WWII memorial, and people were standing all the way back to the Washington Monument! I would say 600,000 is a fair estimate. CBS is a joke.

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  16. I was online yesterday while the rally was underway, and there were nearly 80,000 viewers on the CSPAN feed of the event at that time. I went back to the CSPAN site just now to see how many people had viewed the event after the fact, and there were an additional 29,823 viewers.

    It is reporting such as CBS news has done with its coverage of this event that makes it very difficult for modern Americans to take any "reputable" mainstream news agency seriously.

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  17. I called a friend last night who attended the rally and she said between 500,000 and a million. 600,000 plus is the likely number. A football game at Kyle Field Texas A&M is more than the CBS estimate. CBS is a joke!!!

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  18. Obama said to "obey" and stay home. So we obeyed "Dear Leader" and did. Nonetheless, it was a million "forgotten man" march. At the least!

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  19. I was there, too. Got there at 7AM. 500,000 to 800.000 is a much better estimate.

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  20. We were there... We the People were there. It was awesome watching the crowds roll in. We arrived at 7:30 a.m. and had to go half way down the reflecting pool for a spot for the 6 of us to stand.
    At 10 a.m. it was packed. It was amazing! Worth the effort to drive from Pittsburgh.
    People from all walks of life. Families, people on crutches, people in wheelchairs. Around us, there were Blacks, Asians and Whites. We were all proud to be there... proud to be Americans. Proud of our Faith in God and proud of our families.
    It was well done.
    CBS should apologize for their ignorance.

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  21. Well, I was there and the people were shoulder to shoulder, absolutely packed in. Hell, sardines have it better. You could not move on the walkways it was so crowded. The crowd went from the reflecting pool up the hillside and all the way back to the Washington Monument. It was immense. 87000 is a farce of an estimate as is CBS news.

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  22. The Lamestream Detroit News reported "tens of thousands" - what a bunch of clueless imbeciles. How is it that journalists can keep their jobs when they print errors like this? Look, if they said 300,000 when it's really 400,000 - I might say, well, it's hard to count accurately. But when it's probably 500,000 - 750,000 people and they describe it as tens of thousands, I mean, c'mon!!!! U of M stadium holds 115,000 or so people - that's like if they printed a story next week saying "fans packed the stadium, crowds estimated at 5,000." Seriously, that is how far off they were estimated Beck's Rally. By a factor of 10 or 20 times. C'mon!

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  23. that's why abc,cbs,nbc,cnn,msnbc are losing viewers,advertising and ratings. they are so entrenched, in their lies they can not turn back. just laugh at them.
    desertfox

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  24. I saw a little bit of it on TV and I think there were at least 10 kabillion people there.

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  25. Some of the previous observations are dead on. The crowd was many, many, many times that of a large college football game. We were there @ five-thirty AM and had to go half way down the reflecting pool to set up our chairs. By ten AM there were no places available anywhere close and people were still coming. Both of the side lawns that hold a great deal more people than the immediate area around the pool were packed. Some people set up their chairs by the roads outside both of the lawns as there was no more room. If there wasn't 1,000,000 people there then I'm a Chinese Aviator. Shame on you CBS, you are a sham, that's why we no longer watch you...

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  26. I was there too. There were at least 500,000 to 750,000 people there. And yes, we were packed in there like sardines. My husband and I arrived at around 8am and it was already well crowded. We were on the right side of the reflecting pool under a tree and we watched for the next couple of hours prior to the event as people came like waves in the ocean! The turnout was amazing, but not surprising. People are tired of the lies and the hate rhetoric of the Liberal Media. We want the truth and thats why so many turned out yesterday!

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  27. Of course the Main Stream lying meadi will LIE about the attendance. They HATE Beck and all conservatives.
    I make sure I never buy any product advertised on any of the main stream lying stations like CBS, NBC, ABC, MSPMS, etc.

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  28. Well, I watched most of it online and the online count was over 120,000 and that was about 11:30 central time. 87,000? What a joke. CBS - Certainly Bull S__t.

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  29. i wasnt there but a friend of a friend of a friend said there was at least 1 billion in attendance

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  30. for every one person who attended there were 5000 at home who feel the same.

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  31. I was there. I was able to reach a point approximately 1/4 mile from the steps, but could get no closer, because of the size of the crowd. I could see the top of the Memorial, but had to watch the speeches on one of the huge TV screens they has set up. Even at my 1/4 mile post, it was wall to wall people, hoping to get closer, but most, arriving at 9:30 to 10:00, like we did, never made it any closer. We didn't even try to make it down the center area, alongside the pool, choosing instead, to take a route towards the left, (physical left, NOT political left!!) where we saw possible walking room. We didn't get very far though, until we could no longer move forward.

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  32. I was there and I counted 899, 991 ...and if you count the U.S.D.A.F. (United States Duck Air Force) flyby, that breaks the 900,000 mark.

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  33. 87K? What a major joke! I was there and witnessed people cram into the wooded areas that ariel shots can't capture. You can't even see the many port-a-johns that were setup. Liberal Bloggers: Unless you were there, shut up already with your lies!

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  34. I attended this amazing event....there were droves of people packing into this event..we finally just got off the metro and walked because there were so many people trying to get on. We continued walking and I wish I could see an air shot because there was solid lines and lines of people making their way down. We got there fairly early and made our way about half way down the reflecting pool. I was amazed with this large of a crowd that everyone was so nice and sharing. We met a wonderful lady named Pam that shared her blanket and food with me, my daughter and my 8 year old grandson. We also met people from Cuba and Russia. I was not aware until I heard the news that evening that there was another event going on. The news actually made it sound like there were more people at that event than at the Restoring Honor Rally......and the news also failed to mention that Martin Luther Kings niece was at the Restoring Honor Rally, which by the way she was wonderful. I don't get it CBS, if you are going to report the news please get it correct! And for what purpose do you do this? Maybe you should get all your people together and watch the video!

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  35. The numbers were close to a billion. D.C was shut down for the most part because of it....in fact,all major Interstates on the East Coast were total grid-lock due to the crowd attendees. Im mean, it was nuts. Total chaos!

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  36. I find it interesting that all these wingnuts view everything as an attack. I would estimate that there were a minimum of 87,000 fear-mongering, schizophrenic, delusional psychopaths in attendance. The question I had was what "honor" are they supposedly "restoring"? Are we talking about making amends for all the lies and tremendous deliberate erosion of liberties that were stricken upon our nation from 2001-2009? It would seem that we should have held an event for "restoring honor" in late January or February 2009. It would be to a more fitting time for such an event.

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  37. All you loons who think that the 87,000 number is somehow "biased" need to read this:

    http://stevedoig.com/archives/250

    Basically the same methodology was used to estimate the number in attendance at Obama's inauguration (800,000) and was widely embraced by the right wing. Now those same methodologies are used to estimate this crowd and they're somehow biased? Please.

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  38. I was there.... The subway alone could not handle the crowd ... Train after train full... Great speakers, great rally, and great crowd (no fuss no mess)well over 500,000. Thank you Glenn Beck!

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  39. I just looked at the photo cited above which held the 100,000 people in St. Louis. I was also at the National Mall yesterday. I just now looked at both areas on Google Maps at the same scale. The Beck crowd was many times larger in size, although perhaps not as dense in some areas. My best guess is 300,000 or more were there yesterday. Could have been 500,000. No way it was smaller than 200,000.
    Also, the remarkable thing about the crowd yesterday is that the rally got very little pre-publicity, except on Beck's TV and radio shows. I'm on a bunch of e-mail lists and I frequently get appeals to do this or that. I never got an e-mail to come to the mall. I was shocked to see so many people.

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  40. For every person there, there were many others others watching on webcasts and TV. At one point, facebook showed 129000 plus watching the their live webcast. May the people be heard.

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  41. 87,000 people COULD have been the actual number of Beck Supporters. Nobody really knows. I read where they deciphered what they thought were Beck supporters, minus tourists and minus anti-Beck people and came up with 87,000 people. I was there. With these calculations, even though I saw three anti people together, there must have been another 400,000 people who were anti Beck that I did not see because I saw the number of people and it was not even close to 87,000.

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  42. CBS....who listens to THEM???? Last time I switched to watch them, I decided to make an estimate of the number of reporters they employ. As I have a math degree, and some classes in statistics, my estimation is entirely credible. I counted 0 reporters...that is a ZERO, and not a typo.

    I decided to be fair, I should do same for the entire alphabet "main stream" media. Naturally this ruined my day, but again, my very credible estimates were a big fat ZERO.

    That is why for example, Katie Couric, can only draw a little over 4 million couch potato welfare-drawing viewers on a given morning. They've lost their channel flipper under the couch cushions, and are too lazy to get up and flip channels by hand!

    Glen Beck was able to draw a quarter of that number to pay charter buses to travel up to 1000 miles or more, to fly from as far away as California, to drive in the traffic we saw yesterday, and to walk miles from bus or metro drop-off areas, to stand in the hot sun all morning, with no food to eat, and then to only be able to get a few steps beyone the Washington Monument where the speeches were heard on the many speakers posted throughout the area.

    87,000???? We probably saw that many trying to catch the Metro, as our bus came in. The stations were full, overhead walkway bridges were full, and they were lined up 4-5 deep, all the way down the hills to the parking lots on both sides of the overhead bridges. It was the same at station after station. CBS succeeded only at making fools of themselves....AGAIN.

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  43. CBS is pronounced "See B S" ...

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  44. Watched the whole thing on the tube, and have to say I was impressed with the whole affair. Pretty amusing how the opposition is trying to down play this one. Of course not sure I would be to proud considering myself to be in opposition of a rally that was based on honor though. Just one more case of how the liberal left really does not have any credibility anymore.

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  45. "CBS news reported yesterday that the attendance at the rally was 87,000. That is the figure that we reported, as it came from a credible agency."

    CBS is a "credible agency"? CBS is less credible than the TV preachers. I've never seen an outfit so hell-bent on destroying themselves.

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  46. Why doesn't someone pull the records for the Metro total? Most of the Metro trips in the morning were at "crush levels" (the drivers term)and leaving riders waiting for next metro. Wonder how the money totaled at the end of the day -- which, by the way, does not include all the buses and automobiles.

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  47. Most of us don't hate Glenn Beck and the conservatives that lie...we pity & just ignore them and think those that follow these clods don't have a clue. What idiot would want to do away,after paying in for a lifetime, with social security or medicare... Many of these folks are out there and have no clue what these "leaders" would do to them if they get their way. Masses(even in the millions)doesn't equate to brains in many cases. This one in particular.

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  48. It's easy for people like Beck and Palin to stir up the crowds and collect a fat paycheck by criticizing the efforts of others. I'd like to see who they expect to convert their vague talking points into public policy. Boehner? McConnell? Romney?

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  49. It amazes me that anyone with a brain cell would say there were less than 300,000 people there – it just kills the left that “We The People” have decided to stop being bullied around by big government, which is exactly why our ancestors risked everything to come to America and fight for their freedom and against an oppressive government. We are also tired of “God” being a bad word. Say what you want but all those in attendance came for one reason and it wasn’t for Glenn Beck!!! We came to make a statement that we believe in God and in our Constitution and we stand together ready to fight to protect our rights!!! The days of us sitting by and doing nothing are over so get ready here we come!

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  50. "The Restoring Honor rally attendance could have really reached into the hundreds of thousands. Given the photos of the event, news coverage, and more - that estimate sounds a lot more palatable."

    'A lot more palatable' according to whom? Becuase it just is?

    Ok, first of all: if this rally wasn't political, why are there so many Beck supporters saying it was hundreds of thousands of people? Why would you even care if it wasn't political? It happened, and it satisfied you, right?

    Secondly to numbers: some of the photos look like a large crowd, others show how deceptive the eye can be. If you posted the CBS photos of the event you can see an awful lot of green space the further you get from the memorial with people spread out a fair bit. Additionally in the places they are packed in closer, you see an awful lot of people lying down or sitting on LAWN CHAIRS. Hardly standing room only -- one person in a lawn chair takes up the room 2-3 people would have stood in to hear Martin Luther King speak in the 1960s.

    87,000 is still a lot of people. And 87,000... and remember it could have been as high as 96,000.

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  51. This is why most people, regardless of ideological position, disregard the "Main Stream Media". The networks and some of the cable news continually discredit themselves, either by mis-represnting facts, not checking the facts or simply coloring factual reporting with editorialized reporting. You don't need an overhead shot of the rally to figure out that estimates of "87,000 +/- 9000" was woefully understated. To think these News Establishment takes pot shots at internet reporting. talk about living in glass houses! Good-bye ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, et. al.

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