DISQUS

Web Notes: In Politics and Journalism, what’s in a number?

  • DaveBrooks · 1 year ago
    For what it's worth, in decades of covering smaller events like town meetings or courtroom cases - involving 100 or fewer people - I have found that actually counting the people in the room consistently arrives at a number that is smaller than the eyeball guess of participants.

    I'm not sure whether this applies to larger arenas like this one, however.
  • CC · 1 year ago
    1000, 2000, 3000... does it really matter? Those numbers are anemic no matter how you look at them. Even inflated, it seem sad.
  • Katherine Welsh · 1 year ago
    NHPR mentioned something about this as well - they said the campaign's count was higher than theirs. "Most in the crowd, which the campaign pegged at 3000, but which seemed smaller..." Their story is here: http://www.nhpr.org/node/18419