Web Notes - Latest Comments in In Politics and Journalism, what’s in a number?

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

Katherine Welsh — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 20:54:25 -0000

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

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

CC — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:02:11 -0000

1000, 2000, 3000... does it really matter? Those numbers are anemic no matter how you look at them. Even inflated, it seem sad.

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

DaveBrooks — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 20:45:32 -0000

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.