Crowds count when it comes to political demonstrations.
Whether it’s war, abortion or any other issue, one side wants the biggest numbers possible; the other side wants to play them down.
So it’s no surprise that when The Chronicle reported Jan. 19 that organizers of the previous day’s anti-war rally estimated the crowd at 200,000 and police put the figure at 55,000, readers were incensed.
It was as if the paper couldn’t tell the population of booming Fremont from the population of rustic Petaluma.
With another rally planned for Feb. 16, readers were demanding accuracy.
“Why should we tolerate politically biased guesswork that always gives counts too low or too high?” a Point Richmond reader said.
His idea: aerial photos sharp enough when enlarged to count practically every head.
In an e-mail to a number of Chronicle staffers, he suggested that the paper hire Air Flight Service, a Santa Clara company with decades of experience in aerial photography.
The idea took.
“The Chronicle decided to hire the company because that would give us an opportunity to have an independent count,” Managing Editor Robert J. Rosenthal said. “We did not preconceive the outcome.”
After the Feb. 16 rally, police and organizers both put the crowd at 200, 000.
Late that Sunday, Air Flight Service estimated a crowd one-quarter that size. Editors decided to examine the photographs before going to print.
For several days, Chronicle staffers rechecked the counts, coming to a similar conclusion: At around 1:45 p.m., when the photos were taken, roughly 65,000 people lined the march route and Civic Center Plaza. The paper made clear this did not account for people who left before or arrived after the photo was taken.
There was no small level of discomfort in the newsroom. Many staffers thought the paper was obliged to find a consistent and supportable way to measure the size of crowds. Others were concerned that the paper was becoming a participant in the story, rather than simply telling it from a safe distance.
And while some staffers thought the number jibed with their guesstimates, some worried that the result was vastly at odds with the prevailing wisdom.
Police and rally organizers are sticking to their stories.
It’s unlikely the debate will end.
The photos offer verifiable evidence of the size of the crowd at a moment in time. But other factors – crowd turnover may be the biggest – suggest that exact numbers will always be elusive.
Reader reaction to Friday’s story was swift and mostly reflected views about the wisdom of war.
Anti-war readers said the paper was contributing to the Bush administration’s relentless march toward war. Others congratulated the paper for deflating the hype that surrounds protests. Still others wondered why the paper was making such a fuss over the size of the crowd.
“We knew that whatever we did would be contradicted by some,” Rosenthal said. “If our reporting and research pointed to a higher total, the people criticizing us would be applauding now. We have an obligation to reflect what we believe to be accurate and true even if we know it will draw fire.”
The Chronicle has posted a sampling of photos at sfgate.com/rallycount/ that can be magnified so readers can see the crowd themselves.
But when all is said and done, we’ll probably never get a solid number until turnstiles are installed at demonstrations.
