German Media on the Washington Demonstrations: Confusing Numbers...

After the 2000 elections, many Germans - including Thomas Gottschalk of the famous television entertainment program "Wetten, dass?" - loved to joke about how Americans couldn't count...

Well, looking at German media reports about the demonstrations for and against the war in Washington, it seems that Americans aren't the only ones who struggle with numbers. Here is a small summary of the turnout numbers offered by German media reports:

• ARD Tagesschau, SZ and SPIEGEL ONLINE - "4,000 to 6,000" anti-war demonstrators
• ZDF and Die Zeit - "About 10,000" anti-war demonstrators
• TAZ - "Tens-of-thousands" of anti-war demonstrators
• Die Welt - "50,000 anti-war demonstrators"
• Die Presse (Austrian media site) - "Around 100,000 Americans marched against the war..."

Do I hear 200,000? 500,000? 1,000,000 anti-war demonstrators? Going once - going twice - sold!

Surprisingly, many German media outlets actually did mention the presence of counter-demonstrators in favor of the United States of America's efforts in Iraq - and their turnout was consistently placed around 1,000 (if they were mentioned at all.) So why was the turnout of one group so inflated - so often - and the other held so constant? Could this have anything to do with bias or a lack of professionalism among German media elites?

Naaaaaaaaaaaaaah....

Endnote: SPIEGEL ONLINE's use of the lowest (and most accurate) estimate of the number of anti-war demonstrators can be attributed to the fact that their reporting on the United States has increasingly devolved into a sterile, regurgitated blend of AP, Reuters, dpa and other news wire service articles. Had SPIEGEL ONLINE correspondent Marc Pitzke written the article, there certainly would have been at least 50,000 to 100,000 demonstrators in attendance...perhaps even more. He must have been too busy covering extreme obesity, religiosity, obsession with guns, use of the death penalty, social inequality or some other favorite pet issue of German media elites in some other corner of the United States to take part in report on this weekend's anti-war demonstrations.

Comments

[Dan Kauffman]

Information on the Counter Protest by Gathering of Eagles and Move Americs Forward can be found at

Of Troops and Treason

[Pamela]

An on-topic commentary from Roger Simon (via Instapundit)

What's interesting is why this low turnout when, according to many polls, the public is supposedly massively against the war. If they are so antiwar, they certainly are pretty apathetic about it. This is another example of why Iraq is not Vietnam when filling the streets with demonstrators was a simple matter.

This also may mean that the public opinion polls themselves are not a decent measure of how people really feel. Although pollsters try, polls in general are particularly poor at measuring the depth of people's convictions or natural human ambivalence. Ambivalent people don't tend to get on a bus to go to a demonstration.

Why the Rinky Dink Antiwar Demonstrations

[Carl Spackler]

It's hard to draw crowds when your cadre on stage isn't anymore dewy eyed trust fund blonds and exotic faux Marxists( later to become bond traders ) that have all been replaced by elderly fatties in tie dye with gray ponytails and code pink hefferetts.

The left seems to have now lost their esthetic principals. Upper income, privileged and Physically ugly old harridans and wimpy males, can't compete with buffed working class young men and women in the trenches.

The far left in the US is a curious, small, insignificant force, mostly concerned in re-enacting events that never occurred.

Anyways, the left is in a narcissistic, navel gazing political death cycle. They are soooo dated, sooo yesterday, soo old!

How's it feel lefty baby? How's it feel to end up life old, ugly, stinky and physically cowardly, living in your yupper income ghettos stinking of passed tofu gas?

[commonsense]

On top of the numbers games, the ZDF mentioned 'veterans' amongst the anti-war protestors and called the gathering of Eagles just demonstrators.
Actually I am not surprised they told us about the conter-demonstrators. It's like Fjordman said on his blog: They continually narrow down the spectrum of information they give us, but on that ever smaller spectrum they provide an abundance of information. That way, the normal citizen never gets the feeling that something's being hidden from him. So, in this case, they tell us about the counter-demonstration but by inflating the numbers of the other side they try to make it appear meaningless.

[Scout]

Oh, come off it Carl. Don't sugar coat it so much! Next time, just come right out and tell us what you _really_ think. :D

That notwithstanding, a typical example of MSU on the part of German so-called journalists.

[playertwo]

how pitifully weak they are, but alas their damage has really been in the apathetic victims they have created so they dont mind stories like this. just turn the next generation into either a welfare slave or an overweight child still playing video games, instead of actually caring enough to march.
its not just a matter of numbers or not, there is a third method and that is to get the population to self regulate and stay home. so who is left to vote? old democrats that want free everything because they "deserve it", soccer moms that have browbeaten their mangina "husbands", and the mtv generation "lisa simpsons" that are the only young people concerned enough to vote.
YOU KNOW theyre not concerned about the absentee votes coming from the troops..
these are the "rock stars" that the intellectual elite of the journalism world looked up to and used to hang out with with they were young and trying to make their parents mad, now they have no one to be cool with so they have to try and reinvent them. their nostalgia, your gulag.

[Frogg]

There were thousands, and not any more. The 4000 to 6000 sounds right from the articles I have read. There is no anti-war movement going on in the US right now. There are people against the war. But, no big movement. These are professional protesters who gather for all kinds of reasons. They are anarchists, pro Palestinian, anti globilization, anti any war, pro socialism/communism, anti-capitalism, etc. Every country has a few of these guys, the US is no exception.

[Mike H.]

If the left really wants to stir up anger against the war they need to reinstate the draft. The anger won't boil up until there's a threat of the average lefty possibly dying for some person in a place far away that would preclude them from rock climbing or environmental marches or whatever activity de jour is on the schedule.

[Helian]

"How's it feel lefty baby? How's it feel to end up life old, ugly, stinky and physically cowardly, living in your yupper income ghettos stinking of passed tofu gas?"

Damn, Carl, lighten up. I developed such an allergic reaction to the left after I read your stuff that I ran right out and joined the Prussian monarchist party. "Wir wollen unser'm alten Kaiser Wilhelm wieder ha'm!"

[reliapundit - the astute blogger]

LET COIN A TERM:

LET'S CALL THIS

"THE DAVID'S EFFECT":

THE DAVID'S EFFECT DESCRIBES HOW ISSUE-AFFILIATION LEADS TO EXAGGERATED ESTIMATIONS.

IOW: THE MORE BIASED A PERSON OR GROUP IS, THE LESS ACCURATE AND BIGGER/BADDER/WORSER IS THEIR ESTIMATE.

FOR EXAMPLE, THE ESTIMATED SIZE OF DEMONSTRATION'S CROWD "GETS" LARGER AS THE BIAS OF THE REPORTER GETS CLOSER TO THOSE DEMONSTRATING.

THIS ALSO WORKS WITH IRAQI WAR DEATHS.NOW, REID AND THE "ANTIWAR" CROWD ROUTINELY SAY ONE MILLION IRAQIS HAVE DIED IN THE WAR SINCE 2003. (THE UN PUTS THIS NUMBER AT 75,000.)

IT WORKS ON KATRINA. AND THE ECONOMY TOO.

[jane m]

As a commenter at the Roger L. Simon site remarked - the anti-war movement is alive and well but it hasn't taken to the streets. It gathers under the banners at Daily Kos and the last election was proof of it's existence. I support the war but the other side is winning the battle almost every day.

[reliapundit - the astute blogger]

THERE'S ALSO WHAT I'LL CALL A "BDS/GOP EFFECT" - THIS IS WHEN THE USA MEDIA RATES THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOP CONGRESSMAN BY HOW MUCH THEY OPPOSE BUSH.

THE MORE OPPOSED TO BUSH AN CONGRESSMAN IS, THE MORE IMPORTANT THE CONGRESSMAN IS RATED BY THE MSM.

HAGEL AND SNOWE ARE OFTEN CALLED "LEADING GOP SENATORS" EVEN THO THEY ARE VIRTUALLY DEMS WITH NO VIRTUALLY LEADERSHIP ROLES OF IMPORTANCE.

[M. Simon]

In America conservatives won the last election, some of them are Democrats.

It is why the Democrats have been unable to cut off funding for the war.

[Pamela]

reliapundit, would you please stop yelling. It gives me a headache, which makes me cranky. I'm a pain in the ass when I'm in a good mood.

[Walter E. Wallis]

Governments try to avoid crowd estimates because no one is happy with them. The process usually is to overlay an aerial photo with a grid, then count heads in a representative sample of squares.