BBC: hundred-thousand; NPR: tens of thousands...

[KansDem]

Listened to the BBC report this morning on the demonstrations taking place today in Iraq marking the 4th anniversary of the American invasion. BBC reported a hundred-thousand Iraqis marching and chanting for Americans to leave, along with the burning of American flags. Then NPR came on (5am) and told how tens of thousands comprised the demonstrations. It even went to a clip of a British reporter reporting from Iraq saying that there were a hundred thousand demonstrators.

If ever there was evidence that NPR was taking its cues from the RNC, this was it!

NPR = "New Pressitutes for Republicans"

[RufusTFirefly]

1. National Petroleum Radio n/t

[SteppingRazor]

2. Meh.

I really don't think this is a big deal. :shrug:

One source says 100,000, another says a more general amount that could be anything from 20k to 100k and beyond. Given the state of things in Baghdad, I doubt there's any official count as to how many people are in the streets.

[RufusTFirefly]

6. Mebbe so, but NPR has a history of low-balling embarrassing crowds

I thought it might also have been helpful for news organizations to mention while celebrating this anniversary that the statue toppling was basically stage-managed by the American military, who cleared the streets beforehand. Although there was good reason to cheer Saddam's departure, the statue toppling was not some spontaneous act of "liberated" Iraqis.



The photographs tell the story

[SteppingRazor]

18. It would be nice for news organizations to mention this, but...

since hardly any of them mentioned it the first time around, I'm not holding my breath. :eyes:

[central scrutinizer]

3. Neutered Pomeranian Radio

pathetic lap dogs

[Captain Hilts]

4. I trust the Beeb before NPR, which is turning into a right wing toadie network. nt

[BlooInBloo]

5. Update: "Hundreds of thousands"...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6537861.stm

[KansDem]

7. Update: still "tens of thousands"

Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall, with some demonstrators calling for U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9470422

What I find fascinating is that even after the NPR "reporter" reported "tens of thousands," she went to a British reporter in Iraq quoting "hundreds of thousands." Rather sloppy work for NPR.

Thanks for the update, BnB! I must not have heard that final "s" since I was half asleep...

[BlooInBloo]

11. I wonder: if it got to a million+, would they STILL use units of 10,000?

:rofl: The things people will do, no matter how obviously wrong it may be! :rofl:

[patrice]

17. Yes, they absolutely would.

That's their convention for anything they can't actually count.

[kineneb]

8. Democracy Now: following BBC's numbers

just listening to them now.

I have given up listening to US "news" broadcasts. Thank goodness for my cable modem and streaming radio.

[here_is_to_hope]

9. NPR gave up the ghost

a while back. Used to support it, now I just mail money straight to Click and Clack and Garrison.

[Missy M]

12. Seems Maliki is on the same spin as McCain and Bush....

Mr Maliki thanked Tokyo for its support and said: "Iraq has escaped the constraints of the past and is engaged in new challenges. The country is one and the people are one." That's why there is a civil war going on, because "the people are one". Don't they know how stupid they sound when they make such ridiculous statements.

[mwb970]

10. On cnn.com, it's "thousands" (US Army number).

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/09/iraq.main/index.html

[instantkarma]

13. U.S. Army says 5,000-7,000

.

[KansDem]

15. Amazing. FoxNews uses "tens of thousands" just like NPR

BAGHDAD — Tens of thousands draped themselves in Iraqi flags and marched through the streets of two Shiite holy cities Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall, with some demonstrators calling for U.S.-led forces to leave Iraq.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,264860,00.html

This number must be the "official" American version, courtesy of the Associated Press (the same ones who brought us the "Mark Foley is a Democrat" story).

I fully expected FoxNews to use "hundreds" or even "dozens"--:crazy:

I tend to believe the BBC...

[Broadslidin]

14. NPR, Bought and Paid for by Archers Daniel Midland and on and on and on...

Tis the American corporate democracy way of 'doin business'.

NPR/PBS seem to be very proud of the corporate influence money,
gleefully announcing their list of paymasters
nearly every hour.

[patrice]

16. All media falls back on a so-called convention for situations such as this,

i.e. when they're looking at a crowd that is too large to count, and that convention is to refer to it as "10s of thousands", or less if possible, but never more, no matter how big it is. Like the anti-War rallies in D.C., even when there was an estimate from the Park Service (acquired by flying over the crowd in a helicopter and photographing it, then counting the number of people in a standard area unit and multiplying by the number of units in the whole area covered by the crowd), the media still said "10s of thousands" and when you talk to them about it their line is always, "Since there is no actual count, we follow the journalistic convention of referring to the crowd as 10s of thousands" no matter how far off that may apparently be.

It's a Catch 22: we don't know the number, so we don't have to try to get it right and it doesn't matter that our readers won't know the number either.

[Captain Hilts]

19. Yes, but it's weird the Beeb's estimate is so much higher. nt