Sorry, here is the unscrambled version, sent in the right format...
Item from "If you ran the newspaper" by Lou Gelfand in today's Strib
Credibility
Donna Halvorsen's report last Sunday of a peace rally at the State
Capitol said the crowd was "estimated by Capitol police at 300." Sue
Ann Martinson, one of the organizers, said their count was 1,105. She
said the source is Ricardo Levins Morales, who used a hand counter.
She said, "It's insulting that the press listens always to the
police. They are never good counters." She wants "the press to take
their own count."
Halvorsen said, "No one approached me or called to
say they had a number."
(Full link: http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/801785.html)
Lynnell's comment:
Well, details, details, a discrepency of only 800 people. And
hey, call me old-fashioned, but as a journalist, I always assumed it
was MY job to call around or approach organizers for their numbers. I
didn't realize I could sit in a cubicle and simply wait for
organizers to figure out what reporter was covering their event and
track me down---or that my passivity would published in the newspaper
as a credibility defense.
Sometimes the Strib is so bad, you have to laugh. Beats
crying. Especially in a one-daily town.
Reporting 101: you get the police count; you get the
organizers' count. You print 'em both because there's usually a huge
discrepancy. From my experience, cops routinely under-estimate the
numbers at leftist-sort of rallies. And organizers are notorious of
over-estimating. A guy who's willing to put his name in the paper
and say he used a hand-counter is unusual. Too bad the reporter
didn't pick up the phone.
I suppose I shouldn't be so picky, but this little item ran
after seven days of unusually bad Strib coverage of RT Rybak---which
has been snide, dismissive and negative---make that contemptuous--
from the beginning of his campaign. The Strib attitude seems to have
been, "We Decide Who The Major Players Are....." And RT (along with
some other impressive candidates for a variety of offices) just
didn't come up through the proper ranks. Wasn't an Insider. Didn't
have the right connections. I could rant on and on and add more
specific examples. But let's just say in this election cycle, I
haven't been too impressed with the Fourth Estate. Although I
suppose, if the polls are right, I shouldn't be bothered---the
negative coverage hasn't seemed to have hurt him.
The most important poll, however, is on Nov. 6th. Everyone
get out and vote!
Lynnell Mickelsen
An old geezer at age 44 in Ward 13, Linden Hills who will be
voting for List members Tracey Nordstrom (not Nordquist as I earlier
posted---sorry, all those Scandahoovians sound like) and Greg Abbott,
whom I failed to mention in my first post.
PS: I do have to thank Lou Gelfand for including the line
from last week's travel section on the construction of a large green
statute in Blue Earth. "The governor, Miss America and Miss
Minnesota were on hand to watch the erection of the giant." I had
missed this when it ran the first time. Thanks, Lou.
--
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