America's March on Washington: MSM Coverage

UPDATE BELOW

In my high school class on journalism, the definition of news we used was "the difference that makes a difference." America's march on Washington on September 12th, 2009 was probably the largest protest in the nation's capital ever. It is historic. It is huge news. It is record setting. Yes, it makes a difference.

So how many people were there? Given the historical nature of this event -- some say the biggest ever -- we should expect the so-called main-stream media to have a credible estimate of the crowd size. Except, they do not.

The New York Times -- "All the news that is fit to print." Catchy slogan. Some say the inspiration for Johnny Cochrane's closing argument in the OJ trial. You would expect the New York Times would have some estimate, given it was one of the largest protests in the history of the country. The NYT buried the story and just said 'thousands'. Thousands?! When it was Hundreds of Thousands! That is a lie of omission.

The Daily Mail and other credible sources said 1.2 to 2 million people. It was probably close to a million.

It begs the question: Why doesn't the Times want you to know the size of the biggest rally opposing the federal government ever? At One Million, was it bigger than Vietnam protest? (The Democrats war?) Bigger than Martin Luther King's "I Have A Dream Speech? Bigger than the so-called million-man march?

Remember that the New York Times does not want you to know.

More people went to Washington DC to protest than ever before. They went there because they reject the liberal plans to expand government and take over the health care industry.

The simple high school lesson, that this is a 'difference that makes a difference' is not lost on the New York Times. The Times staff simply prefers to pretend not to know. Ignorance is bliss.

Even if the New York Times wants to ignore the story, the Washington Times is quoting the White House's David Axelrod on the protest participants: "I don't think it's indicative of the nation's mood," David Axelrod, the president's top adviser, said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "My message to them is, they're wrong."

Prediction: The more the White House and the New York Times try to ignore the protests -- the louder they will be. President Obama is the first president to be a lame duck in his first year in office. Don't hold your breath on the NYT covering that fact either. They ought to return to high school journalism fundamentals.

UPDATE: Jane Q. Republican notes:

The largest protest rally in American history occurred in front of the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, September 12, 2009. That’s right. We out rallied all the professional protesters. MoveOn.org, ACORN, CodePink, NOW, NAACP, Rainbow/PUSH… all of them. Not a single activist group has ever mounted a protest that even comes close to comparing to what we pulled off on Saturday. We did it honestly, organically, and on the cheap. (Perhaps even more notably, we have momentarily silenced them all.)

How were we able to get such an “accurate” account of the number of people at the Obama inauguration, but the number of people at this protest is such a complete mystery?

The answer is simple. The powers that be DO NOT WANT YOU TO KNOW.