Video: Fox News falsely hypes 9/12 Tea Party Protest crowd estimate

September 14, 11:20 AMPolitical Buzz ExaminerRyan Witt

Previous Next

19 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Political Buzz Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

The Tea Party Protest crowd estimates vary.  AP Photo David Becker

Since the 9/12 Tea Party Protest, controversy has erupted over the size of the crowd at the event.  Some conservatives have argued the event was a tremendous success with over a million in attendance while liberals argue attendance was disappointing with merely tens of thousands.

In reality the only unbiased source (Washington D.C. Fire Department) we have so far has said the number was about 60,000-70,000 which is much more in line with the liberal claim of "tens of thousands" as opposed to the excess of a million hyped by conservatives.

Fox News joined in on the fray today trying to distort the crowd size and portray the protests as a success.  As shown in the clip below one Fox News "analyst" claims that she "knows there was 400,000 people in attendance."  So we are asked to accept the lay person opinion of a Fox News host over the Washington D.C. Fire Department who make it their business to estimate crowd size multiple times a year.  I would ask this "analyst" how she in fact came up with her 400,000 number.  Did she individually count all 400,000 protesters making sure not to count anyone twice?  Did she use aerial photos with mathematical formulas while also making sure to exclude any pro-reform protesters who were countering the Tea Party protest?  The truth is that this "analyst" is just making up a number in between the disappointing reality of 70,000 and the false hype of 1.5 million in an attempt to sound reasonable.  For my part I will stick with Washington D.C Fire Department on this one.